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diff --git a/old/35387-0.txt b/old/35387-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e93c3af --- /dev/null +++ b/old/35387-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7561 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Émile Verhaeren, by Stefan Zweig + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Émile Verhaeren + +Author: Stefan Zweig + +Translator: Jethro Bithell + +Release Date: February 24, 2011 [EBook #35387] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ÉMILE VERHAEREN *** + + + + +Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org + + + + +EMILE VERHAEREN + +BY + +STEFAN ZWEIG + +LONDON + +CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LTD + +1914 + + + + +[Illustration: Émile Verhaeren from an unpublished photograph by +Charles Bernier, 1914.] + + + + +PREFACE + + +Four years have passed since the present volume appeared simultaneously +in German and French. In the meantime Verhaeren's fame has been +spreading; but in English-speaking countries he is still not so well +known as he deserves to be. + +Something of his philosophy--if it may be called philosophy rather than +a poet's inspired visualising of the world--has passed into the public +consciousness in a grotesquely distorted form in what is known as +'futurism.' So long as futurism is associated with those who have +acquired a facile notoriety by polluting the pure idea, it would be an +insult to Verhaeren to suggest that he is to be classed with the +futurists commonly so-called; but the whole purpose of the present +volume will prove that the gospel of a very serious and reasoned +futurism is to be found in Verhaeren's writings. + +Of the writer of the book it may be said that there was no one more +fitted than he to write the authentic exposition of the teaching which +he has hailed as a new religion. His relations to the Master are not +only those of a fervent disciple, but of an apostle whose labour of +love has in German-speaking lands and beyond been crowned with signal +success. Himself a lyrist of distinction, Stefan Zweig has accomplished +the difficult feat, which in this country still waits to be done, of +translating the great mass of Verhaeren's poems into actual and enduring +verse. Another book of his on Verlaine is already known in an English +rendering; so that he bids fair to become known in this country as one +of the most gifted of the writers of Young-Vienna. + +As to the translation, I have endeavoured to be faithful to my text, +which is the expression of a personality. Whatever divergences there are +have been necessitated by the lapse of time. For help in reading the +proofs I have to thank Mr. M.T.H. Sadler and Mr. Fritz Voigt. + + J. BITHELL. + + HAMMERFIELD, +_Nr_. HEMEL HEMPSTEAD, + 14_th July_ 1914. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +PART I + +THE NEW AGE +THE NEW BELGIUM +YOUTH IN FLANDERS +'LES FLAMANDES' +THE MONKS +THE BREAK-DOWN +FLIGHT INTO THE WORLD + +PART II + +TOWNS ('LES VILLES TENTACULAIRES') +THE MULTITUDE +THE RHYTHM OF LIFE +THE NEW PATHOS +VERHAEREN'S POETIC METHOD +VERHAEREN'S DRAMA + +PART III + +COSMIC POETRY +THE LYRIC UNIVERSE +SYNTHESES +THE ETHICS OF FERVOUR +LOVE +THE ART OF VERHAEREN'S LIFE +THE EUROPEAN IMPORTANCE OF HIS WORK + +BIBLIOGRAPHY +INDEX + + + + +PART I + +DECIDING FORCES + + +LES FLAMANDES--LES MOINES--LES SOIRS--LES +DÉBâCLES--LES FLAMBEAUX NOIRS--AU BORD DE +LA ROUTE--LES APPARUS DANS MES CHEMINS + +1883-1893 + + + + Son tempérament, son caractère, sa vie, tout conspire à nous + montrer son art tel que nous avons essayé de le définir. Une + profonde unité les scelle. Et n'est-ce pas vers la découverte de + cette unité-là , qui groupe en un faisceau solide les gestes, les + pensées et les travaux d'un génie sur la terre, que la critique, + revenue enfin de tant d'erreurs, devait tendre uniquement? + + VERHAEREN, _Rembrandt._ + + + + +THE NEW AGE + + Tout bouge--et l'on dirait les horizons en marche. + É.V., 'La Foule.' + + +The feeling of this age of ours, of this our moment in eternity, is +different in its conception of life from that of our ancestors. Only +eternal earth has changed not nor grown older, that field, gloomed by +the Unknown, on which the monotonous light of the seasons divides, in a +rhythmic round, the time of blossoms and of their withering; changeless +only are the action of the elements and the restless alternation of +night and day. But the aspect of earth's spirit has changed, all that is +subjected to the toil of man. Has changed, to change again. The +evolution of the phenomena of culture seems to proceed with ever greater +rapidity: never was the span of a hundred years as rich, as replete as +that which stretches to the threshold of our own days. Cities have shot +up which are as huge and bewildering, as impenetrable and as endless, as +nothing else has been save those virgin forests now fast receding before +the onward march of the tilled land. More and more the work of man +achieves the grandiose and elementary character that was once Nature's +secret. The lightning is in his hands, and protection from the +weather's sudden onslaughts; lands that once yawned far apart are now +forged together by the iron hoop with which of old only the narrow +strait was arched; oceans are united that have sought each other for +thousands of years; and now in the very air man is building a new road +from country to country. All has changed. + + Tout a changé: les ténèbres et les flambeaux. + Les droits et les devoirs out fait d'autres faisceaux, + Du sol jusqu'au soleil, une neuve énergie + Diverge un sang torride, en la vie élargie; + Des usines de fonte ouvrent, sous le ciel bleu, + Des cratères en flamme et des fleuves en feu; + De rapides vaisseaux, sans rameurs et sans voiles, + La nuit, sur les flots bleus, étonnent les étoiles; + Tout peuple réveillé se forge une autre loi; + Autre est le crime, autre est l'orgueil, autre est l'exploit.[1] + +Changed, too, is the relation of individual to individual, of the +individual to the whole; at once more onerous and less burdensome is the +network of social laws, at once more onerous and less burdensome our +whole life. + +But a still greater thing has happened. Not only the real forms, the +transitory facts of life have changed, not only do we live in other +cities, other houses, not only are we dressed in different clothes, but +the infinite above us too, that which seemed unshakable, has changed +from what it was for our fathers and forefathers. Where the actual +changes, the relative changes also. The most elementary forms of our +conception, space and time, have been displaced. Space has become other +than it was, for we measure it with new velocities. Roads that took our +forefathers days to traverse can now be covered in one short hour; one +flying night transports us to warm and luxuriant lands that were once +separated from us by the hardships of a long journey. The perilous +forests of the tropics with Jheir strange constellations, to see which +cost those of old a year of their lives, are of a sudden near to us and +easy of access. We measure differently with these different velocities +of life. Time is more and more the victor of space. The eye, too, has +learned other distances, and in cold constellations is startled to +perceive the forms of primeval landscapes petrified; and the human voice +seems to have grown a thousand times stronger since it has learned to +carry on a friendly conversation a hundred miles away. In this new +relationship of forces we have a different perception of the spanning +round of the earth, and the rhythm of life, beating more brightly and +swiftly, is likewise becoming new for us. The distance from springtime +to springtime is greater now and yet less, greater and yet less is the +individual hour, greater and less our whole life. + +And therefore is it with new feelings that we must comprehend this new +age. For we all feel that we must not measure the new with the old +measures our forefathers used, that we must not live through the new +with feelings outworn, that we must discover a new sense of distance, a +new sense of time, a new sense of space, that we must find a new music +for this nervous, feverish rhythm around us. This new-born human +conditionality calls for a new morality; this new union of equals a new +beauty; this new topsy-turvydom a new system of ethics. And this new +confrontation with another and still newer world, with another Unknown, +demands a new religion, a new God. A new sense of the universe is, with +a muffled rumour, welling up in the hearts of all of us. + +New things, however, must be coined into new words. A new age calls for +new poets, poets whose conceptions have been nurtured by their +environment, poets who, in the expression they give to this new +environment, themselves vibrate with the feverish rotation of life. But +so many of our poets are pusillanimous. They feel that their voices are +out of harmony with reality; they feel that they are not incorporated +with the new organism and a necessary part of it; they have a dull +foreboding that they do not speak the language of our contemporary life. +In our great cities they are like strangers stranded. The great roaring +streams of our new sensations are to them terrific and inconceivable. +They are ready to accept all the comfort and luxury of modern life; they +are quick to take advantage of the facilities afforded by technical +science and organisation; but for their poetry they reject these +phenomena, because they cannot master them. They recoil from the task +of transmuting poetical values, of sensing whatever is poetically new in +these new things. And so they stand aside. They flee from the real, the +contemporary, to the immutable; they take refuge in whatsoever the +eternal evolution has left untouched; they sing the stars, the +springtime, the babbling of springs which is now as it ever was, the +myth of love; they hide behind the old symbols; they nestle to the old +gods. Not from the moment, from the molten flowing ore, do they seize +and mould the eternal--no, as ever of old they dig the symbols of the +eternal out of the cold clay of the past, like old Greek statues. They +are not on that account insignificant; but at best they produce +something important, never anything necessary. + +For only that poet can be necessary to our time who himself feels that +everything in this time is necessary, and therefore beautiful. He must +be one whose whole endeavour as poet and man it is to make his own +sensations vibrate in unison with contemporary sensations; who makes the +rhythm of his poem nothing else than the echoed rhythm of living things; +who adjusts the beat of his verse to the beat of our own days, and takes +into his quivering veins the streaming blood of our time. He must not on +this account, when seeking to create new ideals, be a stranger to the +ideals of old; for all true progress is based on the deepest +understanding of the past. Progress must be for him as Guyau interprets +it: 'Le pouvoir, lorsqu'on est arrivé à un état supérieur, d'éprouver +des émotions et des sensations nouvelles, sans cesser d'être encore +accessible à ce que contenaient de grand ou de beau ses précédantes +émotions.'[2] A poet of our time can only be great when he conceives +this time as great. The preoccupations of his time must be his also; its +social problem must be his personal concern. In such a poet succeeding +generations would see how man has fought a way to them from the past, +how in every moment as it passed he has wrestled to identify the feeling +of his own mind with that of the cosmos. And even though the great works +of such a poet should be soon disintegrated and his poems obsolete, +though his images should have paled, there would yet remain imperishably +vivid that which is of greater moment, the invisible motives of his +inspiration, the melody, the breath, the rhythm of his time. Such poets, +besides pointing the way to the coming generation, are in a deeper sense +the incarnation of their own period. Hence the time has come to speak of +Émile Verhaeren, the greatest of modern poets, and perhaps the only one +who has been conscious of what is poetical in contemporary feeling, the +only one who has shaped that feeling in verse, the first poet who, with +skill incomparably inspired, has chiselled our epoch into a mighty +monument of rhyme. + +In Verhaeren's work our age is mirrored. The new landscapes are in it; +the sinister silhouettes of the great cities; the seething masses of a +militant democracy; the subterranean shafts of mines; the last heavy +shadows of silent, dying cloisters. All the intellectual forces of our +time, our time's ideology, have here become a poem; the new social +ideas, the struggle of industrialism with agrarianism, the vampire force +which lures the rural population from the health-giving fields to the +burning quarries of the great city, the tragic fate of emigrants, +financial crises, the dazzling conquests of science, the syntheses of +philosophy, the triumphs of engineering, the new colours of the +impressionists. All the manifestations of the new age are here reflected +in a poet's soul in their action--first confused, then understood, then +joyfully acclaimed--on the sensations of a New European. How this work +came into being, out of what resistance and crises a poet has here +conquered the consciousness of the necessity and then of the beauty of +the new cosmic phase, it shall be our task to show. If the time has +indeed come to class Verhaeren, it is not so much with the poets that +his place will be found. He does not so much stand with or above the +verse-smiths or actual artists in verse, with the musicians, or +painters, as rather with the great organisers, those who have forced the +new social currents to flow between dikes; with the legislators who +prevent the clashing of flamboyant energies; with the philosophers, who +aim at co-ordinating and unifying all these vastly complicated +tendencies in one brilliant synthesis. His poetry is a created poet's +world; it is a resolute shaping of phases, a considered new æstheticism, +and a conscious new inspiration. He is not only the poet, he is at the +same time the preacher of our time. He was the first to conceive of it +as _beautiful_, but not like those who, in their zeal for embellishment, +tone down the dark colours and bring out the bright ones; he has +conceived of it--we shall have to show with what a painful and intensive +effort--after his first most obstinate rejection of it, as a necessity, +and he has then transformed this conception of its necessity, of its +purpose, into beauty. Ceasing to look backwards, he has looked forwards. +He feels, quite in the spirit of evolution, in the spirit of Nietzsche, +that our generation is raised high above all the past, that it is the +summit of all that is past, and the turning-point towards the future. +This will perhaps seem too much to many people, who are inclined to call +our generation wretched and paltry, as though they had some inner +knowledge of the magnificence or the paltriness of generations gone. For +every generation only becomes great by the men who do not despair of it, +only becomes great by its poets who conceive of it as great, by its +charioteers of state who have confidence in its power of greatness. Of +Shakespeare and Hugo Verhaeren says: 'Ils grandissaient leur +siècle.'[3] They did not depict it with the perspective of others, but +out of the heart of their own greatness. Of such geniuses as Rembrandt +he says: 'Si plus tard, dans l'éloignement des siècles, ils semblent +traduire mieux que personne leur temps, c'est qu'ils l'ont recréé +d'après leur cerveau, et qu'ils l'ont imposé non pas tel qu'il était, +mais tel qu'ils l'ont déformé.'[4] But by magnifying their century, by +raising even ephemeral events of their own days into a vast perspective, +they themselves became great. While those who of set purpose diminish, +and while those by nature indifferent, are themselves diminished and +disregarded as the centuries recede, poets such as these we honour tell, +like illumined belfry clocks, the hour of the time to generations yet to +come. If the others bequeath some slight possession, a poem or so, +aphorisms, a book maybe, these survive more mightily: they survive in +some great conception, some great idea of an age, in that music of life +to which the faint-hearted and the ungifted of following epochs will +listen as it sounds from the past, because they in their turn are unable +to understand the rhythm of their own time. By this manner of inspired +vision Verhaeren has come to be the great poet of our time, by approving +of it as well as by depicting it, by the fact that he did not see the +new things as they actually are, but celebrated them as a new beauty. +He has approved of all that is in our epoch; of everything, to the very +resistance to it which he has conceived of as only a welcome +augmentation of the fighting force of our vitality. The whole atmosphere +of our time seems compressed in the organ music of his work; and whether +he touches the bright keys or the dark, whether he rolls out a lofty +diapason or strikes a gentle concord, it is always the onward-rushing +force of our time that vibrates in his poems. While other poets have +grown ever more lifeless and languid, ever more secluded and +disheartened, Verhaeren's voice has grown ever more resonant and +vigorous, like an organ indeed, full of reverence and the mystical power +of sublime prayer. A spirit positively religious, not of despondency, +however, but of confidence and joy, breathes from this music of his, +freshening and quickening the blood, till the world takes on brighter +and more animated and more generous colours, and our vitality, fired by +the fever of his verse, flashes with a richer and younger and more +virile flame. + +But the fact that life, to-day of all days, needs nothing so urgently as +the freshening and quickening of our vitality, is good reason why--quite +apart from all literary admiration--we must read his books, is good +reason why this poet must be discussed with all that glad enthusiasm +which we have first learned for our lives from his work. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] 'Aujourd'hui'(_Les Héros_). + +[2] Guyau, _L'Esthétique Contemporaine._ + +[3] 'L'Art' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[4] _Rembrandt_. + + + + +THE NEW BELGIUM + + Entre la France ardente et la grave Allemagne. + _É.V._, 'Charles le Téméraire.' + + +In Belgium the roads of Europe meet. A few hours transport one from +Brussels, the heart of its iron arteries, to Germany, France, Holland, +and England; and from Belgian ports all countries and all races are +accessible across the pathless sea. The area of the land being small, it +provides a miniature but infinitely varied synthesis of the life of +Europe. All contrasts stand face to face concisely and sharply outlined. +The train roars through the land: now past coal-mines, past furnaces and +retorts that write the fiery script of toil on an ashen sky; now through +golden fields or green pastures where sleek, brindled cows are grazing; +now through great cities that point to heaven with their multitudinous +chimneys; and lastly to the sea, the Rialto of the north, where +mountains of cargoes are shipped and unshipped, and trade traffics with +a thousand hands. Belgium is an agricultural land and an industrial +land; it is at the same time conservative and socialistic, Roman +Catholic and free-thinking; at once wealthy and wretched. There are +colossal fortunes heaped up in the monster cities; and two hours thence +the bitterest poverty sweats for the dole of a living in mines and +barns. And again in the cities still greater forces wrestle with one +another: life and death, the past and the future. Towns monkishly +secluded, girt with ponderous mediæval walls, towns on whose swart and +sedgy canals lonely swans glide like milky gondolas, towns like a dream, +strengthless, prisoned in sleep eternal. At no great distance glitter +the modern residential cities; Brussels with its glaring boulevards, +where electric inscriptions dart coruscating up and down the fronts of +buildings, where motor-cars whiz along, where the streets rumble, and +modern life twitches with feverish nerves. Contrast on contrast. From +the right the Teutonic tide dashes in, the Protestant faith; from the +left, sumptuous and rigidly orthodox, Roman Catholicism. And the race +itself is the restlessly struggling product of two races, the Flemish +and the Walloon. Naked, clear, and direct are the contrasts which here +defy each other; and the whole battle can be surveyed at a glance. + +But so strong, so persistent is the inexorable pressure of the two +neighbouring races, that this blend has already become a new ferment, a +new race. Elements once contrary are now unrecognisably mixed in a new +and growing product. Teutons speak French, people of Romance stock are +Flemish in feeling. Pol de Mont, in spite of his Gallic name, is a +Flemish poet; Verhaeren, Maeterlinck, and van Lerberghe, though no +Frenchman can pronounce their names rightly, are French poets. And this +new Belgian race is a strong race, one of the most capable in Europe. +Contact with so many foreign cultures, the vicinity of such +contradictory nations, has fertilised them; healthy rural labour has +steeled their limbs; the near sea has opened their eyes to the great +distances. Their consciousness of themselves is of no long date: it can +only be reckoned from the time when their country became independent, +hardly a hundred years ago. A nation younger than America, they are in +their adolescence now, and rejoicing in their new, unsought strength. +And just as in America, the blend of races here, together with the +fruitful, healthy fields, has procreated robust men. For the Belgian +race is a race pulsing with vitality. Nowhere in Europe is life so +intensely, so merrily enjoyed as in Flanders, nowhere else is sensuality +and pleasure in excess so much the measure of strength. They must be +seen particularly in their sensual life; it must be seen how the Flemish +enjoy; with what greediness, with what a conscious pleasure and robust +endurance. It is among them that Jordaens found the models for his +gluttonous orgies; and they could be found still at every kermesse, at +every wake. Statistics prove that in the consumption of alcohol Belgium +stands to-day at the head of Europe. Every second house is an inn, an +_estaminet_; every town, every village has its brewery; and the brewers +are the wealthiest men in the country. Nowhere else are festivals so +loud, boisterous, and unbridled; nowhere else is life loved and lived +with such a superabundant zest and glow. Belgium is the land of +excessive vitality, and ever was so. They have fought for this plenitude +of life, for this enjoyment full to satiety. Their most heroic exploit, +their great war with the Spaniards, was only a struggle not so much for +religion as for sensual freedom. These desperate revolts, this immense +effort was in reality not directed against Roman Catholicism, but +against the morality, the asceticism it enforced; not so much against +Spain as against the sinister malignity of the Inquisition; against the +taciturn, bitter, and insidious Puritanism which sought to curtail +enjoyment; against the morose reserve of Philip II. All that they wanted +at that time was to preserve their bright and laughing life, their free, +dionysiac enjoyment, the imperious avidity of their senses; they were +determined not to be limited by any measure short of excess. And with +them life conquered. Health, strength, and fecundity is to this very day +the mark of the Belgian people in town and country. Poverty itself is +not hollow-cheeked and stunted here. Chubby, red-cheeked children play +in the streets; the peasants working in the fields are straight and +sturdy; even the artisans are as muscular and strong as they are in +Constantin Meunier's bronzes; the women are moulded to bear children +easily; the unbroken vigour of the old men persists in a secure defiance +of age. Constantin Meunier was fifty when he began his life-work here; +at sixty Verhaeren is at the zenith of his creative power. Insatiable +seems the strength of this race, whose deepest feeling has been +chiselled by Verhaeren in proud stanzas: + + Je suis le fils de cette race, + Dont les cerveaux plus que les dents + Sont solides et sont ardents + Et sont voraces. + Je suis le fils de cette race + Tenace, + Qui veut, après avoir voulu + Encore, encore et encore plus![1] + +This tremendous exertion has not been in vain. To-day Belgium is +relatively the richest country in Europe. Its colony of the Congo is ten +times as extensive as the mother-land. The Belgians hardly know where to +place their capital: Belgian money is invested in Russia, in China, in +Japan; they are concerned in all enterprises; their financiers control +trusts in all countries. The middle classes, too, are healthy, strong, +and contented. + +Such rich and healthy blood is more likely than any other to produce +good art, and, above all, art full of the zest of life. For it is in +countries with few possibilities of expansion that the desire for +artistic activity is keenest. The imagination of great nations is for +the most part absorbed by the practical demands of their development. +The best strength of a great nation is claimed by politics, by +administration, by the army and navy; but where political life is of +necessity poor, where the problems of administration are forcibly +restricted, men of genius almost exclusively seek their conquests in the +domains of art. Scandinavia is one example, Belgium another, of +countries in which the aristocracy of intellect have with the happiest +results been forced back on art and science. In such young races the +vital instinct must _a priori_ make all artistic activity strong and +healthy; and even when they produce a decadence, this reaction, this +contradiction, is so decided and consequent, that strength lies in its +very weakness. For only a strong light can cast strong shadows; only a +strong, sensual race can bring forth the really great and earnest +mystics; because a decided reaction which is conscious of its aim +requires as much energy as positive creation. + +The towering structure of Belgian art rests on a broad foundation. The +preparation, the growing under the sod, took fifty years; and then in +another fifty years it was reared aloft by the youth of one single +generation. For every healthy evolution is slow, most of all in the +Teutonic races, which are not so quick, supple, and dexterous as the +Latin races, who learn by life itself rather than by studious +application. This literature has grown ring by ring like a tree, with +its roots deep in a healthy soil nourished by the unyielding +perseverance of centuries. Like every confession of faith, this +literature has its saints, its martyrs, and its disciples. The first of +the creators, the forerunner, was Charles de Coster; and his great epic +_Thyl Ulenspiegel_ is the gospel of this new literature. His fate is +sad, like that of all pioneers. In him the native blend of races is more +plastically visualised than in all later writers. Of Teutonic +extraction, he was born in Munich, wrote in French, and was the first +man to feel as a Belgian. He earned his living painfully as a teacher at +the Military School. And when his great romance appeared, it was +difficult to find a publisher, and still more difficult to find +appreciation, or even notice. And yet this work, with its wonderful +confrontation of Ulenspiegel as the deliverer of Flanders with Philip +II. as Antichrist, is to this day the most beautiful symbol of the +struggle of light with darkness, of vitality with renunciation; an +enduring monument in the world's literature, because it is the epic of a +whole nation. With such a work of wide import did Belgian literature +begin, a work that with its heroic battles stands like the Iliad as the +proud and primitive beginning of a more delicate, but in its advanced +culture more complex, literature. The place of this writer, who died +prematurely, was taken by Camille Lemonnier, who accepted the hard task +and the melancholy inheritance of pioneers--ingratitude and +disillusion. Of this proud and noble character also one must speak as of +a hero. For more than forty years he fought indefatigably for Belgium, a +soldier leading the onset from first to last, launching book after book, +creating, writing, calling to the fray and marshalling the new forces; +and never resting till the adjective 'Belgian' ceased in Paris and +Europe to be spoken with the contempt that attaches to 'provincial'; +till, like once the name of the Gueux, what was originally a disgrace +became a title of honour. Fearlessly, not to be discouraged by any +failure, this superb writer sung his native land--fields, mines, towns, +and men; the angry, fiery blood of youths and maidens; and over all the +ardent yearning for a brighter, freer, greater religion, for rapt +communion with the sublimity of Nature. With the ecstatic revelling in +colour of his illustrious ancestor Rubens, who gathered all the things +of life together in a glad festival of the senses, he, like a second +voluptuary at the feast, has lavished colours, had his joy of all that +is glowing, and glaring, and satiated, and, like every genuine artist, +conceived of art as an intensifying of life, as life in intoxication. +For more than forty years he created in this sense, and miraculously, +just like the men of his country, like the peasants he painted, he +waxed in vigour from year to year, from harvest to harvest, his books +growing ever more fiery, ever more drunken with the zest and glow of +life, his faith in life ever brighter and more confident. He was the +first to feel the strength of his young country with conscious pride, +and his voice rang out its loud appeal for new fighters till he no +longer stood alone, till a company of other artists were ranged around +him. Each of these he supported and firmly established, with a strong +grip placing them at their vantage for the battle; and without envy, nay +with joy, he saw his own work triumphantly overshadowed by the acclaimed +creations of his juniors. With joy, because he probably considered not +his own novels, but this creation of a literature his greatest and most +lasting work. For it seemed as though in these years the whole land had +become alive; as though every town, every profession, every class had +sent forth a poet or a painter to immortalise them; as though this whole +Belgium were eager to be symbolised in individual phases in works of +art, until he should come who was destined to transform all towns and +classes in a poem, enshrining in it the harmonised soul of the land. Are +not the ancient Teutonic cities of Bruges, Courtrai, and Ypres +spiritualised in the stanzas of Rodenbach, in the pastels of Fernand +Khnopff, in the mystic statues of Georges Minne? Have not the sowers of +corn and the workers in mines become stone in the busts of Constantin +Meunier? Does not a great drunkenness glow in Georges Eekhoud's +descriptions? The mystic art of Maeterlinck and Huysmans drinks its +deepest strength from old cloisters and _béguinages_; the sun of the +fields of Flanders glows in the pictures of Théo van Rysselberghe and +Claus. The delicate walking of maidens and the singing of belfries have +been made music in the stanzas of the gentle Charles van Lerberghe; the +vehement sensuality of a savage race has been spiritualised in the +refined eroticism of Félicien Rops. The Walloons have their +representative in Albert Mockel; and how many others might still be +named of the great creators: the sculptor van der Stappen; the painters +Heymans, Stevens; the writers des Ombiaux, Demolder, Glesener, +Crommelynck; who have all in their confident and irresistible advance +conquered the esteem of France and the admiration of Europe. For they, +and just they, were gifted with a sense of the great complex European +feeling which in their work is glimpsed in its birth and growth; for +they did not in their idea of a native land stop at the boundaries of +Belgium, but included all the neighbouring countries, because they were +at the same time patriots and cosmopolitans: Belgium was to them not +only the place where all roads meet, but also that whence all roads +start. + +Each of these had shaped his native land from his own angle of vision; a +whole phalanx of artists had added picture to picture. Till then this +great one came, Verhaeren, who saw, felt, and loved everything in +Flanders, 'toute la Flandre.' Only in his work did it become a unity; +for he has sung everything, land and sea, towns and workshops, cities +dead and cities at their birth. He has not conceived of this Flanders of +his as a separate phase, as a province, but as the heart of Europe, with +the strength of its blood pulsing inwards from outside and outside from +inwards; he has opened out horizons beyond the frontiers, and heightened +and connected them; and with the same inspiration he has molten and +welded the individual together with the whole until out of his work a +life-work grew--the lyric epic of Flanders. What de Coster half a +century before had not dared to fashion from the present, in which he +despaired of finding pride, power, and the heroism of life, Verhaeren +has realised; and thus he has become the 'carillonneur de la Flandre,' +the bell-ringer who, as in olden days from the watch-tower, has summoned +the whole land to the defence of its will to live, and the nation to the +pride and consciousness of its power. + +This Verhaeren could only do, because he in himself represents all the +contrasts, all the advantages of the Belgian race. He too is a ferment +of contrasts, a new man made of split and divergent forces now +victoriously harmonised. From the French he has his language and his +form; from the Germans his instinctive seeking of God, his earnestness, +his gravity, his need of metaphysics, and his impulse to pantheism. +Political instincts, religious instincts, Catholicism and socialism, +have struggled in him; he is at once a dweller in great cities and a +cottager in the open country; and the deepest impulse of his people, +their lack of moderation and their greed of life, is in the last +instance the maxim of his poetic art. Only that their pleasure in +intoxication has in him become joy in a noble drunkenness, in ecstasy; +only that their carnal joy has become a delight in colour; that their +mad raging is now in him a pleasure in a rhythm that roars and thunders +and bursts in foam. The deepest thing in his race, an inflexible +vitality which is not to be shaken by crises or catastrophes, has in him +become universal law, a conscious, intensified zest in life. For when a +country has become strong and rejoices in its strength, it needs, like +every plethora, a cry, an exultation. Just as Walt Whitman was the +exultation of America in its new strength, Verhaeren is the triumph of +the Belgian race, and of the European race too. For this glad confession +of life is so strong, so glowing, so virile that it cannot be thought of +as breaking forth from the heart of one individual, but is evidently the +delight of a fresh young nation in its beautiful and yet unfathomed +power. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] 'Ma Race' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + + + + +YOUTH IN FLANDERS + + Seize, dix-sept et dix-huit ans! + O ce désir d'être avant l'âge et le vrai temps + Celui + Dont chacun dit + Il boit à larges brocs et met à mal les filles! + É.V., _Les Tendresses Premières_. + +The history of modern Belgian literature begins, by a whim of chance, in +one and the same house. In Ghent, the favourite city of the Emperor +Charles V., in the old, heavy Flemish town that is still girdled with +ramparts, lies, remote from the noisy streets, the grey Jesuit college +of Sainte-Barbe. A cloister with thick, cold, frowning walls, mute +corridors, silent refectories, reminding one somewhat of the beautiful +colleges in Oxford, save that here there is no ivy softening the walls, +and no flowers to lay their variegated carpet over the green courts. +Here, in the seventies, two strange pairs of boys meet on the +school-benches; here among thousands of names are four which are +destined in later days to be the pride of their country. First, Georges +Rodenbach and Émile Verhaeren, then Maeterlinck and Charles van +Lerberghe--two pairs of friendships, both of which are now torn asunder +by death. The weaker, the more delicate of the four, Georges Rodenbach +and Charles van Lerberghe, have died; Emile Verhaeren and Maeterlinck, +the two heroes of Flanders, are still growing and not yet at the zenith +of their fame. But all four began their course in the old college. The +Jesuit fathers taught them their humanities, and even to write poems--in +Latin, it is true, to begin with; and in this exercise, strange to say, +Maeterlinck was excelled by van Lerberghe with his more instinctive +sense of form, and Verhaeren by the more supple Georges Rodenbach. With +rigorous earnestness the fathers trained them to respect the past, to +have faith in conventional things, to think in old grooves, and to hate +innovations. The aim was not only to keep them Catholics, but to win +them for the priesthood: these cloister walls were to protect them from +the hostile breath of the new world, from the freshening wind which, in +Flanders as everywhere else, was assailing the growing generation. + +But in these four pupils the aim was not realised, least of all in +Verhaeren, perhaps for the very reason that he, as the scion of a +strictly orthodox family, was the most fitted to be a priest; because +his mind did not absorb conviction mechanically, but achieved it by +vital processes; because his inmost being was self-surrender and a +glowing devotion to great ideas. However, the call of the open country, +in which he had grown up, was too strong in him; the voice of life was +too loud in his blood for so early a renunciation of all; his mind was +too tameless to be satisfied with the established and the traditional. +The impressions of his childhood were more vivid than the teaching of +his masters. For Verhaeren was born in the country, at St. Amand on the +Scheldt (on the 21st of May 1855), where the landscape rolls to the vast +horizons of the heath and the sea. Here in the happiest manner kindly +circumstances wove the garland of his earlier years. His parents were +well-to-do people who had retired from the din of the town to this +little corner of Flanders; here they had a cottage of their own, with a +front garden ablaze with flowers of all colours. And immediately behind +the house began the great golden fields, the tangle of flowering +hedgerows; and close by was the river with its slow waves hasting no +longer, feeling the nearness of their goal, the infinite ocean. Of the +untrammelled days of his boyhood the ageing poet has told us in his +wonderful book _Les Tendresses Premières_. He has told us of the boy he +was when he ran across country; clambered into the corn-loft where the +glittering grain was heaped; climbed steeples; watched the peasants at +their sowing and reaping; and listened to the maids at the washing-tub +singing old Flemish songs. He watched all trades; he rummaged in every +corner. He would sit with the watch-maker, marvelling at the humming +little wheels that fashioned the hour; and no less to see the glowing +maw of the oven in the bakery swallowing the corn which only the day +before had glided through his fingers in rustling ears, and was now +already bread, golden, warm, and odorous. At games he would watch in +astonishment the glad strength of the young fellows tumbling the reeling +skittles over; and he would wander with the playing band from village to +village, from fair to fair. And, sitting on the bank of the Scheldt, he +would watch the ships, with their coloured streamers, come and go, and +in his dreams follow them to the vast distances, which he only knew from +sailors' yarns and pictures in old books. All this, this daily physical +familiarity with the things of Nature, this lived insight into the +thousand activities of the working-day, became his inalienable +possession. Inalienable, too, was the humane feeling he acquired that he +was one at heart with the people of his village. From them he learned +the names of all these thousand things, and the intelligence of the +mysterious mechanism in all skilled handiwork, and all the petty cares +and perplexities of these many scattered little souls of life which, +combined, are the soul of a whole land. And therefore Verhaeren is the +only one among modern poets in the French tongue who is really popular +with his countrymen of all ranks. He still goes in and out among them as +their equal, sits in their circle even now, when fame has long since +shown him his place among the best and noblest, chats with the peasants +in the village inn, and loves to hear them discussing the weather and +the harvest and the thousand little things of their narrow world. He +belongs to them, and they belong to him. He loves their life, their +cares, their labour, loves this whole land with its tempests raging from +the north, with its hail and snow, its thundering sea and lowering +clouds. It is with pride that he claims kindred with his race and land; +and indeed there is often in his gait and in his gestures something of +the peasant trampling with heavy steps and hard knee after his plough; +and his eyes 'are grey as his native sea, his hair is yellow like the +corn of his fields.' These elemental forces are in his whole being and +production. You feel that he has never lost touch with Nature, that he +is still organically connected with the fields, the sea, the open air; +he to whom spring is physically painful, who is depressed by relaxing +air, who loves the weather of his home-land, its vehemence, and its +savage, tameless strength. + +For this very reason he has in later years felt, what was natively +uncongenial to him--the great cities--differently and far more intensely +than poets brought up in them. What to the latter appeared self-evident +was to him astonishment, abomination, terror, admiration, and love. For +him the atmosphere we breathe in cities was heavy, stifling, poisoned; +the streets between the massed houses were too narrow, too congested; +hourly, at first in pain and then with admiration, he has felt the +beautiful fearfulness of the vast dimensions, the strangeness of the new +forms of life. Just as we walk through mountain ravines dumbfounded and +terrified by their sublimity, he has walked through streets of cities, +first slowly accustoming himself to them; thus he has explored them, +described them, celebrated them, and in the deepest sense lived them. +Their fever has streamed into his blood; their revolts have reared in +him like wild horses; their haste and unrest has whipped his nerves for +half the span of a man's life. But then he has returned home again. In +his fifties he has taken refuge once more in his fields, under the +lonely sky of Flanders. He lives in a lonely cottage somewhere in +Belgium, where the railway does not reach, enjoying himself among +cheerful and simple people who fill their days with plain labour, like +the friends and companions of his boyhood. With a joy intensified he +goes eagerly year by year to the sea, as though his lungs and his heart +needed it to breathe strongly again, to feel life with more jubilant +enthusiasm. In the man of sixty there is a wonderful return of his +healthy, happy childhood; and to the Flanders that inspired his first +verses his last have been dedicated. + +Against this atavism, against this bright and inalienable joy in life, +the _patres_ of Sainte-Barbe could do nothing. They could only deflect +his great hunger of life from material things, and turn it in the +direction of science, of art. The priest they sought to make of him he +has really become, only he has preached everything that they proscribed, +and fought against everything that they praised. At the time Verhaeren +leaves school, he is already filled with that noble yet feverish greed +of life, that tameless yearning for intensive enjoyments heightened to +the degree of pain which is so characteristic of him. The priesthood was +repugnant to him. Nor was he more allured by the prospect, held out to +him, of directing his uncle's workshop. It is not yet definitely the +poetic vocation which appeals to him, but he does desire a free active +calling with unlimited possibilities. To gain time for his final +decision, he studies jurisprudence, and becomes a barrister. In these +student years in Louvain Verhaeren gave free rein to his untameable zest +in life; as a true Fleming he eschewed moderation and launched into +intemperance. To this very day he is fond of telling of his liking for. +good Belgian beer, and of how the students got drunk, danced at all the +kermesses, caroused and feasted, when the fury came over them, and got +into all kinds, of mischief, which often enough brought them into +conflict with the police. Uncertainty was never a feature of his +character, and so his Roman Catholicism was in those years no silent and +impersonal faith, but a militant orthodoxy. A handful of hotspurs--the +publisher Deman was one of them, and another was the tenor van Dyck--set +a newspaper going, in which they lashed away mercilessly at the +corruption of the modern world, and did not forget to blow their own +trumpets. The university was not slow to veto these immature +manifestations; but ere long they started a second periodical, which +was, however, more in harmony with the great contemporary movements. +Betweenwhiles verses were written. And still more passionate is the +young poet's activity when, in the year 1881, he is called to the bar in +Brussels. Here he makes friends with men of great vitality: he is +welcomed by a circle of painters and artists, and a cénacle of young +talents is formed who have the authentic enthusiasm for art, and who +feel that they are violently opposed to the conservative bourgeoisie of +Brussels. Verhaeren, who at this time greedily adopts all fashionable +freakishness as something new, and struts about in fantastic apparel, +promptly acquires notoriety by his vehement passionateness and his first +literary attempts. He had begun to write verse in his school-days. +Lamartine had been his model, then Victor Hugo, who bewitches young +people, that lord of magnificent gestures, that undisputed master of +words. These juvenilia of Verhaeren have never been published, and +probably they have little interest, for in them his tameless vitality +attempted expression in immaculate Alexandrines. More and more, as his +artistic insight grew, he felt that his vocation was to be a poet; the +meagre success he achieved as a barrister confirmed him in this +conviction, and so in the end, following the advice of Edmond Picard, he +discarded the barrister's gown, which now seemed to him as narrow and +stifling as he had once thought the priest's cassock to be. + +And then came the hour, the first decisive hour. Lemonnier was as fond +of relating it as is Verhaeren; both would speak of it with their +fervent, proud joy in a friendship of over thirty years; both with +heartfelt admiration, the one for the other. Once, it was a rainy day, +Verhaeren burst in on Lemonnier, whom he did not know, trampling into +the elder man's lodging with his heavy peasant's tread, hailing him with +his hearty gesture, and blurting out: 'Je veux vous lire des vers!' It +was the manuscript of his first book _Les Flamandes_; and now he +recited, while the rain poured down outside, with his hard voice and +sharp scansion, his great enthusiasm and his compelling gestures, those +pictures, palpitating with life, of Flanders, that first free confession +of patriotism and foaming vitality. And Lemonnier encouraged him, +congratulated him, helped him, and suggested alterations, and soon the +book appeared, to the terror of Verhaeren's strictly orthodox family, to +the horror of the critics, who were helpless in the face of such an +explosion of strength. Execrated and lauded, it immediately compelled +interest. In Belgium, it is true, it was less acclaimed than declaimed +against; but nevertheless it everywhere excited a commotion, and that +grumbling unrest which always heralds the advent of a new force. + + + + +'LES FLAMANDES' + + Je suis le fils de cette race + Tenace, + Qui veut, après avoir voulu + Encore, encore et encore plus. + É.V., _Ma Race_. + +The life-work of great artists contains not only a single, but a +threefold work of art. The actual creation is only the first, and not +always the most important; the second must be the life of the artists +themselves; the third must be the harmoniously finished, organically +connected relationship between the act of creating and the thing +created, between poetry and life. To survey how inner growth is +connected with external formation, how crises of physical reality are +connected with artistic decadence, how development and completion +interpenetrate as much in personal experience as in the artistic +creation, must be an equal artistic rapture, must disengage as pure a +line of beauty as the individual work. In Verhaeren these conditions of +the threefold work of art are accomplished in full. Harsh and abrupt as +the contrasts in his books seem to be, the totality of his development +is yet rounded off to a clear line, to the figure of a circle. In the +beginning the end was contained, and in the end the beginning: the bold +curve returns to itself. Like one who travels round the world and +circles the vast circumference of the globe, he comes back in the end to +his starting-point. Beginning and end touch in the motive of his work. +To the country to which his youth belonged his old age returns: Flanders +inspired his first book, and to Flanders his last books are dedicated. + +True it is, between these two books _Les Flamandes_ and _Les Blés +Mouvants_, between the work of the man of five-and-twenty and that of +the man of sixty, lies the world of an evolution with, all its points of +view and achievements. Only now, when the line that was at first so +capricious has returned to itself, can its form be surveyed and its +harmony perceived. A purely external observation has become penetration: +the eye no longer exclusively regards the external phenomena of things, +but all has been seized in his soul from within and imaged in accordance +with its reality. Now nothing is seen isolated, from the point of view +of curiosity or passing interest, but everything is looked upon as +something that is, that has grown, and that is still growing. The motive +is the same in the first and in the last books; only, in the first book +we have isolated contemplation, while in the great creations of the last +period the vast horizons of the modern world are set behind the scenes, +with the shadows of the past on the one side, and, as well, with fiery +presentiments of the future shedding a new light over the landscape. +The painter, who only portrayed the outer surface, the patina, has +developed into the poet, he who in a musical vibration vivifies the +psychic and the inconceivable. These two works stand in the same +relation to each other as Wagner's first operas, _Rienzi_ and +_Tannhäuser_, do to his later creations, to the _Ring_ and _Parsifal_: +what was at first only intuitive becomes consciously creative. And as in +Wagner's case, so too with Verhaeren there are to this very day people +who prefer the works that are still prisoned in the traditional form to +those which were created later, and who are thus, in reality, greater +strangers to the poet than those who, from principle, assume a hostile +attitude to his artistic work. + +_Les Flamandes_, Verhaeren's first work, appeared in a period of +literary commotion. Zola's realistic novels had just become the object +of discussion; and they had stirred up, not France only, but the +adjacent countries as well. In Belgium Camille Lemonnier was the +interpreter of this new naturalism, which regarded absolute truth as +more important than beauty, and which saw the sole aim of imaginative +literature in photography, in the exact, scientifically accurate +reproduction of reality. To-day, now that excessive naturalism has been +overcome, we know that this theory only brings us half-way along the +road; that beauty may live by the side of truth; that on the other hand +truth is not identical with art, but that it was only necessary to +establish a transmutation of the value of beauty; that it was in the +actual, in realities, that beauty was to be sought. Every new theory, if +it is to succeed, needs a strong dose of exaggeration. And the idea of +realising reality in poetry seduced young Verhaeren into carefully +avoiding, in the description of his native province, all that is +sentimental and romantic, and deluded him with the hope of expressing in +his verse only what is coarse, primitive, and savage. Something external +and something internal, nature and intention, combined to cause this +effect. For the hatred of all that is soft and weak, rounded off and in +repose, is in Verhaeren's blood. His temperament was from the first +fiery, and loved to respond to strong provocation with a violent blow. +There was ever in him a love of the brutal, the hard, the rough, the +angular; he had always a liking for what is glaring and intensive, loud +and noisy. It is only in his latest books that, thanks to his cooler +blood, he has attained classical perfection and purity. In those days, +moreover, his hatred of sentimental idealisation, the hatred that in +Germany fulminated against Defregger's drawing-room Tyrolese, Auerbach's +scented peasants, and the spruce mythology of poetical pictures, led him +deliberately to emphasise what is brutal, unæsthetic, and, as it was +then felt, unpoetical; led him, as it were, to trample with heavy shoes +in the tedious footsteps of French poets. Barbarian: this was the word +they tried to kill him with, not so much on account of the harshness and +coarseness of his diction, which often reminds one of the guttural +sounds of German, as because of the savage selection of his instinct, +which always preferred what is ringingly resonant and ferociously alive, +which never fed on nectar and ambrosia, but tore red and steaming shreds +of flesh from the body of life. And genuinely barbarous, savage with +Teutonic strength, is this his inroad into French literature, reminding +one of those migrations of the Teutons into the Latin lands, where they +rushed ponderously to battle with wild and raucous cries, to learn, +after a time, a higher culture and the finer instincts of life from +those they had conquered. Verhaeren in this book does not describe what +is amiable and dreamy in Flanders, not idylls, but 'les fureurs +d'estomac, de ventre et de débauche,'[1] ail the explosions of the lust +of life, the orgies of peasants, and even of the animal world. Before +him, his old schoolfellow Rodenbach had described Flanders to the French +in poems that sounded gently with a silvery note, like the peal of +belfries hovering over roofs; he had reminded them of that unforgettable +melancholy of the evening over the canals of Bruges, of the magic of the +moonlight over fields framed with dikes and hedges of willows. But +Verhaeren closes his ears to hints of death; he describes life at its +maddest, 'le décor monstrueux des grasses kermesses,'[2] popular +festivals, in which intoxication and sensual pleasure sting the +unbridled strength of the crowd, in which the demands of the body and +the greed of money come into conflict, and the bestial nature of man +overthrows the painfully learned lessons of morality. And even in these +descriptions, which often teem with the exuberance of Rabelais, one +feels that even this explosive life is not mad enough for him, that he +yearns to intensify life out and beyond reality: 'jadis les gars avaient +les reins plus fermes et les garces plus beau téton.'[3] These young +fellows are too weak for him, the wenches too gentle; he cries for the +Flanders of olden time, as it lives in the glowing pictures of Rubens +and Jordaens and Breughel. These are his true masters, they, the +revellers, who created their masterpieces between two orgies, whose +laughter and feasting ring into the motives of their pictures. Some of +the poems in _Les Flamandes_ are direct imitations of certain interiors +and sensual genre-pictures: lads afire with lust forcing wenches under +the hedges; peasants in their drunken jubilation dancing round the inn +table. His desire is to sing that superabundance of vitality which +relieves itself by excess, excess flung into excess, even in sensual +pleasures. And his own colours and words, which are laid on with lavish +profusion and flow along in liquid fire, are themselves a debauch, a +'rut' (a favourite word of his). This vaunting display of seething +pictures is nothing less than an orgy. A terrific sensuality rages to +exhaustion as much in the execution as in the motive, a delight in these +creatures who have the madness of rutting stallions, who root about in +odorous meats and in the flowering flesh of women, who of set purpose +gorge themselves with beer and wine, and then in the dance and in +embraces discharge all the fire they have swallowed. Now and again a +reposeful picture alternates, firmly fixed in the dark frame of a +sonnet. But the hot wave streams over these breathing-spaces, and again +the mood is that of Rubens and of Jordaens, those mighty revellers. + +But naturalistic art is pictorial, not poetic. And it is the great +defect of this book that it was written by an inspired painter only, not +yet by a poet. The words are coloured, but they are not free; they do +not yet rock themselves in their own rhythm; they do not yet storm along +to soar aloft with the inspiration; they are wild horses regularly +trotting along in the shafts of the Alexandrine. There is a disparity +between the inner intractability and the external regularity of these +poems. The ore has not yet been molten long enough in the crucible of +life to burst the hereditary mould. You feel that the avidity of life +which is the substance of the work has really been seen 'à travers un +tempérament,' that here a strong personality is in revolt against all +tradition, a strong personality whose ponderous onslaught was bound to +strike terror into the cautious and the short-sighted. But the strength +and the art are not yet emancipated. Verhaeren is already a passionate +onlooker, but he is still only an onlooker, one who stands without and +not within the vortex, who watches everything with inspired sympathy, +but who has not yet experienced it. This land of Flanders has not yet +become a part of the poet's sensibility; the new point of view and the +new form for it are not yet achieved; there is yet wanting that final +smelting of the artistic excitement which is bound to burst all bonds +and restrictions, to flame along in its own free feeling in an +enraptured intoxication. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] 'Les Vieux Maîtres' (_Les Flamandes_). + +[2] 'Les Vieux Maîtres' (_Les Flamandes_). + +[3] 'Truandailles' (_Ibid._). + + + + +THE MONKS + + Moines venus vers nous des horizons gothiques, + Mais dont l'âme, mais dont l'esprit meurt de demain.... + Mes vers vous bâtiront de mystiques autels. + É.V., 'Aux Moines.' + + +Rubens, that lavish reveller, is the genius of the Flemish zest in +living; but zest in living is only the temperament and not the soul of +Flanders. Before him there were the earnest masters of the cloisters, +the primitives, the van Eycks, Memling, Gerhard David, Roger van der +Weyden; and after them came Rembrandt, the meditative visionary, the +restless seeker after new values. Belgium is something else beside the +merry land of kermesses; the healthy, sensual people are not the soul of +Flanders. Glaring lights cast strong shadows. All vitality that is +strongly conscious of itself produces its counterpart, seclusion and +asceticism; it is just the healthiest, the elemental races--the Russians +of to-day for instance--who among their strong have the weak, among +their gluttons of life those who avert their faces from it, among those +who assent some who deny. By the side of the ambitious, teeming Belgium +we have spoken of, there is a sequestered Belgium which is falling into +ruins. Art exclusively in Rubens's sense could take no account of all +those solitary cities, Bruges, Ypres, Dixmude, through whose noiseless +streets the monks hasten like flocks of ravens in long processions, in +whose canals the dumb white shadows of gliding nuns are mirrored. There, +mid life's raging river, are broad islands of dream where men find +refuge from realities. Even in the great Belgian cities there are such +sequestered haunts of silence, the _béguinages,_ those little towns in +the town, whither ageing men and women have retired, renouncing the +world for the peace of the cloister. Quite as much as the passion of +life, the Roman Catholic faith and monkish renunciation are nowhere so +deeply and firmly rooted as in this Belgium, where sensual pleasure is +so noisy in its excess. Here again an extreme of contrasts is revealed: +frowning in the face of the materialistic view of life stands the +spiritual view. While the masses in the exuberance of their health and +strength proclaim life aloud and pounce on its eternal pleasures, aside +and cut off from them stand another, far lesser company to whom life is +only a waiting for death, whose silence is as persistent as the +exultation of the others. Everywhere here austere faith has its black +roots in the vigorous, fruitful soil. For religious feeling always +remains alive among a people that has once, although centuries may have +passed since, fought with every fibre of its being for its faith. This +is a subterranean Belgium that works in secret and that easily escapes +the cursory glance, for it lives in shadows and silence. From this +silence, however, from this averted earnestness, Belgian art has derived +that mystical nourishment which has lent its baffling strength to the +works of Maeterlinck, the pictures of Fernand Khnopff and Georges Minne. +Verhaeren, too, did not turn aside from this sombre region. He, as the +painter of Belgian life, saw these shadows of a vanishing past, and, in +1886, added to his first book _Les Flamandes_ a second, _Les Moines_. It +almost seems as though he had first of all been obliged to exhaust both +the historical styles of his native land before he could reach his own, +the modern style. For this book is essentially a throw-back, a +confession of faith in Gothic art. + +Monks are for Verhaeren heroic symbols of I mighty periods in the past. +In his boyhood he I was familiar with their grave aspect. Near the +cheerful house where his youth was passed, there was at Bornhem a +Bernhardine monastery, whither the boy had often accompanied his father +to confession, and in whose cold corridors he had often waited in +astonishment and with a child's timidity, listening to the majestic +chant of the liturgy married to the organ's earnest notes. And here, one +day of days, he received, with a thrill of pious terror, his first +communion. Since that day the monks had been to him, as he trod the +beaten track of custom, beings in a strange world apart, the incarnation +of the beautiful and the supersensual, the unearthly on his child's +earth. And when, in the course of years, he sought to create in verse a +vision of Flanders in all her luminous and burning colours, he could not +forgo this mysterious chiaroscuro, this earnest tone. For three weeks he +withdrew to the hospitable monastery of Forges, near Chimay, taking part +in all the ceremonies and rites of the monks, who, in the hope of +winning a priest, afforded him full insight into their life. But +Verhaeren's attitude towards Roman Catholicism was by this time anything +but religious, it was rather an æsthetic and poetic admiration for the +noble romanticism of the ceremonial, a moral piety for the things of the +past. He remained three weeks. Then he fled, oppressed by the nightmare +of the ponderous walls, and, as a souvenir for himself, chiselled the +image of the monastery in verse. + +This book too, no doubt, had no other aim than to be pictorial, +descriptive. In rounded sonnets, as though etched by Rembrandt's needle, +he fixed the chiaroscuro of the cloister's corridors, the hours of +prayer, the earnest meetings of the monks, the silence in the intervals +of the liturgy. The evenings over the landscape were described, in a +ritual language, with the images of faith: the sun as it sets in crimson +flaming like the wine in the chalice; steeples like luminous crosses in +a silent sky; the rustling corn bowing when the bell rings to evensong. +The poetry of devotion and repose was here revived: the harmony of the +organ; the beauty of corridors garlanded with ivy; the touching idyll of +the lonely cemetery; the peaceful dying of the prior; the visiting of +the sick, and the I comfort it brings. Nothing was allowed in the deep +light of the colours, in the grave repose of the theme, save what could +be fitted into the strictly religious frame of the picture. + +But here the pictorial method proved to be I insufficient for the poetic +effect. The problem of religious feeling is too close to the heart to be +reached by outward, even by plastic manifestations. A thing which is so +eminently hostile to the sensuous, nay, which is the very symbol of I +all that is contrary to sensuousness, cannot be reached by a picturesque +appeal to the senses; the description of an intellectual problem must +cease to be descriptive and become psychology. And so, thus early in his +career, Verhaeren is forced away from the picturesque. First, however, +he attempts the plastic method: he gives us sombre statues of monks; but +even as statues they are only types of an inner life, symbols of the +ways to God. Verhaeren develops in his monks the difference of their +characters, which are still effective even under the soutane; and by his +delicate characterisation he shows the I manifold possibilities of +religious feeling. The I feudal monk, a noble of ancient lineage, would +make a conquest of God, as once his ancestors conquered castle and +forest lands with spur and sword. The _moine flambeau_, he that is +burning with fervour, would possess Him with his passion like a woman. +The savage monk, he that has come from the heart of a forest, can only +comprehend Him in heathen wise, only fear Him as the wielder of thunder +and lightning, while the gentle monk, he that loves the Virgin with a +troubadour's timid tenderness, flees from the fear of Him. One monk +would fathom Him by the learning of books and by logic; another does not +understand Him, cannot lay hold on Him, and yet finds Him everywhere, in +all things, in all he experiences. Thus all the characters of life, the +harshest contrasts, are jostled together, quelled only by the monastery +rules. But they are only in juxtaposition, just as the painter loves all +his colours and things equally, just as he places things in +juxtaposition, without estimating them according to their value. So far +there is nothing that binds them together inwardly, there is no conflict +of forces, no great idea. Neither are the verses as yet free; they too +have the effect of being bound by the strict discipline of the monks. +'Il s'environne d'une sorte de froide lumière parnassienne qui en fait +une Å“uvre plus anonyme, malgré la marque du poète poinçonnée à +maintes places sur le métal poli,'[1] says Albert Mockel, the most +subtle of æsthetic critics, of the book. Verhaeren must himself have +felt this insufficiency, for, conscious of not having solved his +problems in terms of poetry, he has remoulded both aspects of the +country, renewed both books in another form after many years: _Les +Moines_ in the tragedy _Le Cloître, Les Flamandes_ in the great +pentalogy _Toute la Flandre._ + +_Les Moines_ was the last of Verhaeren's descriptive books, the last in +which he stood on the outer side of things contemplating them +dispassionately. But already here there is too much temperament in him +to allow him to look at things as altogether unconnected and +undisciplined; the joy of magnifying and intensifying by feeling already +stirs in him. At the end of the book he no longer sees the monks as +isolated individuals, but gathers them all together in a great synthesis +in his finale. Behind them the poet sees order, a secret law, a great +force of life. They, these hermits who have renounced, who are scattered +over the world in a thousand monasteries, are to the poet the last +remnants of a great departed beauty, and they are so much the more +grandiose as they have lost all feeling for our own time. They are the +last ruins of moribund Christianity in a new world, projecting, in +tragic loneliness, into our own days. 'Seuls vous survivez grands au +monde chrétien mort!'[2] he hails them in admiration, for they have +built the great House of God, and for many generations sacrificed their +blood for the Host eternally white. In admiration he hails them. Not in +faith and love, but in admiration for their fearless energy, and above +all because they go on fighting undaunted for something that is dead and +lost; because their beauty serves none other than itself; because they +project into our own time like the ancient belfries of the land, which +no longer call to prayer. In a land where everything else serves a +purpose, pleasure and gold, they stand lonely; and they die without a +cry and without a moan, fighting against an invisible enemy, they, the +last defenders of beauty. For at that time, at that early stage of his +career, beauty for Verhaeren was still identical with the past, because +he had not yet discovered beauty for himself in the new things; in the +monks he celebrates the last romanticists, because he had not yet found +poetry in the things of reality, not yet found the new romance, the +heroism of the working-day. He loves the monks as great dreamers, as the +_chercheurs de chimères sublimes_, but he cannot help them, cannot +defend what they possess, for behind them already stand their heirs. +These heirs are the poets--a curious echo of David Strauss's idea about +religion--who will have to be, what religion with its faithful was to +the past, the guardians and eternal promoters of beauty. They it will +be--here rings strangely the deepest intention of Verhaeren's later +work--who will wave their new faith over the world like a banner, they, +'les poètes venus trop tard pour être prêtres,'[3] who shall be the +priests of a new fervour. All religions, all dogmas, are brittle and +transitory, Christ dies as Pan dies; and even this poetic faith, the +last and highest conquest of the mind, must in its time pass away. + + Car il ne reste rien que l'art sur cette terre + Pour tenter un cerveau puissant et solitaire + Et le griser de rouge et tonique liqueur. + +In this great hymn to the future Verhaeren first turns away from the +past and seeks the path to the future. For the poetic idea is here +understood with new and greater feelings than in the beginning of his +career. Poetry is for Verhaeren a confession not only as applied to an +individual in Goethe's phrase, but in a religious sense as well: as the +highest moral confession. + +Much as these two books are marked by the effort to describe Flanders as +it actually is, stronger than this effort is the yearning at the heart +of them to escape from the present to the past. Every temperament +exceeds reality. Flanders was here described in the sense of an ideal; +but the ideal in both cases was projected on the past. Beauty young +Verhaeren had sought in the monks, the symbols of the past; strength and +the fire of life he had sought in the old Flemish masters. He still +needed the costume of the past to discover the heroic and the beautiful +in the present, just like many of our poets, who, when they would paint +strong men, must perforce place their dramas in the Florentine +renaissance, and who, if they would fashion beauty, deck their +characters with Greek costumes. To find strength and beauty, or in one +word poetry, in the real things that surround us, is here still denied +to Verhaeren; and therefore he has disowned his second book as well as +his first. In the distance between the old and the new works the long +road may be seen, and seen with pride, which leads from the traditional +poet to the truly contemporary poet. + +Though not yet divided with a master hand, though not yet in the light +of reality, the inner contrast of the country, the conflict between body +and soul, between the joy of life and the longing for death, between +pleasure and renunciation, the alternative between 'yes' and 'no,' was +yet already contained in the contrast of these two books. And in a +really emotional poet this contrast could not remain one that was purely +external; it was bound to condense to an inner problem, to a personal +decision between past and present. Two conceptions of the world, both +inherited and in the blood, have here attained consciousness in one man; +and though in life they may act independently in juxtaposition, in the +individual the conflict must be fought out, the victory of the one or +the other must be decided by force, or else by something higher, by an +internal reconciliation. This conflict for a conception of the world +pierces through the constant contrast between the acceptance and the +denial of life in the poet, a conflict that for ten long years +undermined his artistic and human experiences with terrific crises, and +brought him to the verge of annihilation. The hostility which divides +his country into two camps seems to have taken refuge in his soul to +fight it out in a desperate and mortal duel: past and future seem to be +fighting for a new synthesis. But only from such crises, from such +pitiless struggles with the forces of one's own soul, do the vast +conceptions of the universe and their new creative reconciliation grow. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Albert Mockel, _Émile Verhaeren_. + +[2] 'Aux Moines.' + +[3] 'Aux Moines.' + + + + +THE BREAK-DOWN + + Nous sommes tous des Christs qui embrassons nos croix. + É. V.,'La Joie,' + +Every feeling, every sensation is, in the last instance, the +transformation of pain. Everything that in vibration or by contact +touches the epithelium affects it as pain. As pain, which then, by the +secret chemistry of the nerves, transmitted from centre to centre, is +transformed into impressions, colours, sounds, and conceptions. The +poet, whose last secret really is that he is more sensitive than others, +that he purifies these pains of contact into feeling with a still more +delicate filter, must have finer nerves than anybody else. Where others +only receive a vague impression, he must have a clear perception, to +which his feeling must respond, and the value of which he must be able +to estimate. In Verhaeren's very first books a particular kind of +reaction to every incitement was perceptible. His feeling really +responds only to strong, intensive, sharp irritation; its delicacy was +not abnormal, only the energy of the reaction was remarkable. His first +artistic incitement; however, that of Flemish landscapes, was only one +of the retina, glaring colours, pictorial charm; only in _Les Moines_ +had for the first time more delicate psychic shades been crystallised. +In the meantime a transformation had taken place in his exterior life. +Verhaeren had turned aside from the contemplation of Nature to +concentrate his strength on the cultivation of his mind. He had +travelled extensively, had been in Paris and London, in Spain and +Germany; with impetuous haste he had assimilated all great ideas, all +new phases, all the manifold theories of existence. Without a pause, +incessantly, experiences assail him and tire him out. A thousand +impressions accost him, each demanding an answer; great, sombre cities +discharge their electric fire upon him, and fill his nerves with leaping +flame. The sky above him is obscured by the clouds of cities; in London +he wanders about as though wildered in a forest. This grey, misty city, +that seems as though it were built of steel, casts its whole melancholy +over the soul of him who lives there in loneliness, ignorant of the +language, and who is so much the more lonely, as all these +manifestations of the new life in great cities are still unintelligible +to him. He is still unable to capture the poetry that is in them, and so +they leap at him and penetrate him with a confused, unintelligible pain. +And in this novel atmosphere the intense refinement of his nerves +proceeds at such a pace that already the slightest contact with the +outer world produces a quivering reaction. Every noise, every colour, +every thought presses in upon him as though with sharp needles; his +healthy sensibility becomes hypertrophied; that fineness of hearing, of +which one is conscious, say in sea-sickness, which perceives every +noise, even the slightest sound, as though it were the blow of a hammer, +undermines his whole organism; every rapidly-passing smell corrodes him +like an acid; every ray of light pricks him like a red-hot needle. The +process is aggravated by a purely physical illness, which corresponds to +his psychic ailment. Just at that time Verhaeren was attacked by a +nervous affection of the stomach, one of those repercussions of the +psychic on the physical system in which it is hard to say whether the +ailing stomach causes the neurasthenic condition, or the weakness of the +nerves the stagnation of the digestive functions. Both ailments are +inwardly co-ordinated, both are a rejection of the outer impression, an +impotent refusal of the chemical conversion. Just as the stomach feels +all food as pain, as a foreign body, so the ear repels every sound as an +intrusion, so the eye rejects every impression as pain. This nervous +rejection of the outer world was already then, in Verhaeren's life, +pathological. The bell on the door had to be removed, because it shocked +his nerves; those who lived in the house had to wear felt slippers +instead of shoes; the windows were closed to the noise of the street. +These years in Verhaeren's life are the lowest depth, the crisis of his +vitality. It is in such periods of depression that invalids shut +themselves off from the world, from their fellow-men, from the light of +day, from the din of existence, from books, from all contact with the +outer world, because they instinctively feel that everything can be a +renewal of their pain, and nothing an enrichment of their life. They +seek to soften the world, to tone its colours down; they bury themselves +in the monotony of solitude. This 'soudaine lassitude'[1] then impinges +on to the moral nature; the will, losing the sense of life, is +paralysed; all standards of value collapse; ideals founder in the most +frightful Nihilism. The earth becomes a chaos, the sky an empty space; +everything is reduced to nothingness, to an absolute negation. Such +crises in the life of a poet are almost always sterile. And it is +therefore of incalculable value that here a poet should have observed +himself and given us a clear picture of himself in this state, that, +without fear of the ugliness, the confusion of his ego, he should have +described, in terms of art, the history of a psychic crisis. In +Verhaeren's trilogy, _Les Soirs, Les Débâcles, Les Flambeaux Noirs_, we +have a document that must be priceless to pathologists as to +psychologists. For here a deep-seated will to extract the last +consequence from every phase of life has reproduced the stadium of a +mental illness right to the verge of madness; here a poet has with the +persistence of a physician pursued the symptoms of his suffering +through every stage of lacerating pain, and immortalised in poems the +process of the inflammation of his nerves. + +The landscape of this book is no longer that of his native province; +indeed, it can hardly be called one of earth. It is a grandiose +landscape of dreams, horizons as though on some other planet, as though +in one of those worlds which have cooled into moons, where the warmth of +the earth has died out and an icy calm chills the vast far-seen spaces +deserted of man. Already in the book of the monks, Rubens's merry +landscape had been clouded over; and in the next, _Au Bord de la Route_, +the grey hand of a cloud had eclipsed the sun. But here all the colours +of life are burnt out, not a star shines down from this steel-grey +metallic sky; only a cruel, freezing moon glides across it from time to +time like a sardonic smile. These are books of pallid nights, with the +immense wings of clouds closing the sky, over a narrowed world, in which +the hours cling to things like heavy and clammy chains. They are works +filled with a glacial cold. 'Il gèle ...'[2] one poem begins, and this +shuddering tone pierces like the howling of dogs ever and ever again +over an illimitable plain. The sun is dead, dead are the flowers, the +trees; the very marshes are frozen in these white midnights: + + Et la crainte saisit d'un immortel hiver + Et d'un grand Dieu soudain, glacial et splendide.[3] + +In his fever the poet is for ever dreaming of this cold, as though in a +secret yearning for its cooling breath. No one speaks to him, only the +winds howl senselessly through the streets like dogs round a house. +Often dreams come, but they are _fleurs du mal_; they dart out of the +ice burning, yellow, poisonous. More and more monotonous grow the days, +more and more fearful; they fall down like drops, heavy and black. + + Mes jours toujours plus lourds s'en vont roulant leur cours![4] + +In thought and sound these verses express ail the frightful horror of +this desolation. Impotently the ticking of the clock hammers this +endless void, and measures a barren time. Darker, and darker grows the +world, more and more oppressive; the concave mirror of solitude distorts +the poet's dreams into frightful grimaces, and spirits whisper evil +thoughts in his restless heart. + +And like a fog, like a heavy, stifling cloud, fatigue sinks down on his +soul. First pleasure in things had died, and then the very will to +pleasure. The soul craves nothing now. The nerves have withdrawn their +antennæ from the outer world; they are afraid of every impression; they +are spent. Whatever chances to drift against them no longer becomes +colour, sound, impression; the senses are too feeble for the chemical +conversion of impressions: and so everything remains at the stage of +pain, a dull, gnawing pain. Feeling, which the nerves are now powerless +to feed, starves; desire is sunk in sleep. Autumn has come; all the +flowers have withered; and winter comes apace. + + Il fait novembre en mon âme. + Et c'est le vent du nord qui clame + Comme une bête dans mon âme.[5] + +Slowly, but irresistible as a swelling tide, emerges an evil thought: +the idea of the senselessness of life, the thought of death. As the last +of yearnings soars up the prayer: + + Mourir! comme des fleurs trop énormes, mourir![6] + +For the poet's whole body is, as it were, sore from this contact with +the outer world, from these little gnawing pains. Not a single great +feeling can stand erect: everything is eaten away by this little, +gnawing, twitching pain. But now the man in his torture springs up, as a +beast, tormented by the stings of insects, tears its chains asunder and +rushes madly and blindly along. The patient would fain flee from his bed +of torture, but he cannot retrace his steps. No man can 'se recommencer +enfant, avec calcul.'[7] Travels, dreams, do nothing but deaden the +pain; and then the torment of the awakening sets in again with redoubled +strength. Only one way is open: the road which leads forward, the road +to annihilation. Out of a thousand petty pains, the will longs for one +single pain that shall end all: the body that is being burnt piecemeal +cries for the lightning. The sick man desires--as fever-patients will +tear their wounds open--to make this pain, which tortures without +destroying, so great and murderous that it will kill outright: to save +his pride, he would fain be himself the cause of his destruction. Pain, +he says to himself, shall not continue to be a series of pin-pricks; he +refuses to 'pourrir, immensément emmailloté d'ennui';[8] he asks to be +destroyed by a vast, fiery, savage pain; he demands a beautiful and +tragic death. _The will to experience becomes here the will to suffer +pain_ and even death. He will be glad to suffer any torture, but not +this one low little thing; he can no longer endure to feel himself so +contemptible, so wretched. + + N'entendre plus se taire, en sa maison d'ébène, + Qu'un silence total dont auraient peur les morts.[9] + +And with a flagellant's pleasure the patient nurses this fire of fever, +till it flames up in a bright blaze. The deepest secret of Verhaeren's +art was from the first his joy in intemperance, the strength of his +exaggeration. And so, too, he snatches up this pain, this neurasthenia +to a wonderful, fiery, and grandiose ecstasy. A cry, a pleasure breaks +out of this idea of liberation. For the first time the word 'joy' blazes +again in the cry: + + Le joie enfin me vient, de souffrir par moi-même, + Parce que je lé veux.[10] + +True, only a perverse joy, a sophism, the false triumph over life of the +suicide, who believes he has conquered fate when, truth to tell, it has +conquered him. But this self-deception is already sublime. + +By this sudden interference of the will the physical torture of the +nerves becomes a psychic event; the illness of the body encroaches upon +the intellect; the neurasthenia becomes a 'déformation morale'; the +suffering schism of the poet's ego is of itself subdivided, so to speak, +into two elements, one that excites pain and one that suffers pain. The +psychic would fain tear itself free from the physical, the soul would +fain withdraw from the tortured body: + + Pour s'en aller vers les lointains et se défaire + De soi et des autres, un jour, + En un voyage ardent et mol comme l'amour + Et légendaire ainsi qu'un départ de galère![11] + +But the two are relentlessly bound up with each other, no flight is +possible, however much disgust drives the poet to rescue at least a part +of himself by snatching it into a purer, calmer, and higher state. +Never, I believe, has the aversion of a sick man to himself, the will to +health of a living man, been more cruel and more grandiose than in this +book of a poet's diabolical revolt against himself. His suffering soul +is torn into two parts. In a fearful personification the hangman and the +condemned criminal wrestle for the mastery. 'Se cravacher dans sa +pensée et dans son sang!'[12] and finally, in a paroxysm of fury, 'me +cracher moi-même,'[13] these are the horribly shrilling cries of +self-hatred and self-disgust. With all the strings of her whipped +strength the soul tears to free herself from the rotting and tormented +body, and her deepest torture is that this separation is impossible. In +this distraction flickers already the first flame of madness. + +Never--if we except Dostoieffsky--has a poet's scalpel probed the wound +of his ego so cruelly and so deeply, never has it gone so dangerously +near to the nerve of life. And never perhaps, except in Nietzsche's +_Ecce Homo!_ has a poet stepped so close to the edge of the precipice +that juts above the abyss of existence, with so clear a consciousness of +its vicinity, to feast on the feeling of dizziness and on the danger of +death. The fire in Verhaeren's nerves has slowly inflamed his brain. But +the other being, the poet in him, had remained watchful, observing the +eye of madness slowly, inevitably, and as though magnetically attracted, +coming nearer and nearer. 'L'absurdité grandit en moi comme une fleur +fatale.'[14] In gentle fear, but at the same time with a secret +voluptuous pleasure, he felt the dreaded thing approaching. For long +already he had been conscious that this rending of himself had hunted +his thinking from the circle of clarity. And in one grandiose poem, in +which he sees the corpse of his reason floating down the grey Thames, +the sick man describes that tragic foundering: + + Elle est morte de trop savoir, + De trop vouloir sculpter la cause, + --------------------------------- + Elle est morte, atrocement, + D'un savant empoisonnement, + Elle est morte aussi d'un délire + Vers un absurde et rouge empire.[15] + +But no fear takes him at this thought. Verhaeren is a poet who loves +paroxysm. And just as in his physical illness he had called out in the +deepest joy for the intoxication of illness, for its exasperation, for +death, so now his psychic illness demands its intoxication, the +dissolution of all order, its most glorious foundering: madness. Here, +too, the pleasure in the quest of pain is intensified to the highest +superlative, to a voluptuous joy in self-destruction. And as sick men +amid their torments scream of a sudden for death, this tortured man +screams in grim yearning for madness: + + Aurai-je enfin l'atroce joie + De voir, nerfs par nerfs, comme une proie, + La démence attaquer mon cerveau?[16] + +He has measured all the deeps of the spirit, but all the words of +religion and science, all the elixirs of life, have been powerless to +save him from this torment. He knows all sensations, and there was no +greatness in any of them; all have goaded him, none have exalted him or +raised him above himself. And now his heart yearns ardently for this +last sensation of all. He is tired of waiting for it, he will go out to +meet it: 'Je veux marcher vers la folie et ses soleils.'[17] He hails +madness as though it were a saint, as though it were his saviour; he +forces himself to 'croire à la démence ainsi qu'en une foi.'[18] It is a +magnificent picture reminding one of the legend of Hercules, who, +tortured by the fiery robe of Nessus, hurls himself on the pyre to be +consumed by one great flame instead of being wretchedly burnt to death +by a thousand slow and petty torments. + +Here the highest state of despair is reached; the black banner of death +and the red one of madness are furled together. With unprecedented logic +Verhaeren, despairing of an interpretation of life, has exalted +senselessness as the sense of the universe. But it is just in this +complete inversion that victory already lies. Johannes Schlaf, in his +masterly study, has with great eloquence demonstrated that it is just at +the moment when the sick man cries out like one being crucified, 'Je +suis l'immensément perdu,'[19] just when he feels he is being drawn into +the bosom of the infinite, that he is redeemed and delivered. Just this +idea, which here had whipped the little pain to the verge of madness, + + À chaque heure, violenter sa maladie; + L'aimer, et la maudire,[20] + +is already the deepest leitmotiv of Verhaeren's work, the key to unlock +the gates of it. For the idea is nothing else than the idea of his life, +to master all resistance by a boundless love, 'aimer le sort jusqu'en +ses rages';[21] never to shun a thing, but to take everything and +enhance it till it becomes creative, ecstatic pleasure; to welcome every +suffering with fresh readiness. Even this cry for madness, no doubt the +extreme document of human despair, is an immense yearning for clearness; +in this tortured disgust with illness cries a joy in life perhaps else +unknown in our days; and the whole conflict, which seems to be a flight +from life, is in the last instance an immense heroism for which there is +no name. Nietzsche's great saying is here fulfilled: 'For a dionysiac +task a hammer's hardness, _the pleasure in destruction itself_, is most +decidedly one of the preliminary conditions.'[22] And what at this +period of Verhaeren's work appears still to be negative is in the higher +sense a preparation for the positive, for the decisive consummation, of +the later books. + +For that reason this crisis and the shaping of it in verse remain an +imperishable monument of our contemporary literature, for it is at the +same time an eternal monument to the conquest of human suffering by the +power of art. Verhaeren's crisis--his exposition, for the sake of the +value of life, of his inward struggle--has gone deeper than that of any +other poet of our time. To this very day the sufferings of that time are +graven, as though by iron wedges, in the furrows of his lofty brow; the +recovery of his health and his subsequent robustness have been powerless +to efface them. This crisis was a fire without parallel, a flame of +passion. Not a single acquisition from the earlier days was rescued from +it. Verhaeren's whole former relation to the world has broken down: his +Catholic faith, his religion, his feeling for his native province, for +the world, for life itself, all is destroyed. And when he builds up his +work now, it must perforce be an entirely different one, with a +different artistic expression, with different feelings, different +knowledge, and different harmonies. This tempest has changed the +landscape of his soul, where once the peace of a modest existence had +prevailed, into a pathless desert. But this desert with its solitude has +space and liberty for the building up of a new, a richer, an infinitely +nobler world. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] 'L'Heure Mauvaise' (_Au Bord de la Route_). + +[2] 'La Barque' (_Au Bord de la Route_). + +[3] 'Le Gel' (_Les Soirs_). + +[4] 'L'Heure Mauvaise' (_Au Bord de la Route_). + +[5] 'Vers' (_Au Bord de la Route_). + +[6] 'Mourir' (_Les Soirs_). + +[7] 'S'amoindrir' (_Les Débâcles_). + +[8] 'Si Morne' (_Les Débâcles_) + +[9] 'Le Roc' (_Les Flambeaux Noirs_). + +[10] 'Insatiablement' (_Les Soirs_). + +[11] 'Là -bas' (_Au Bord de la Route_). + +[12] 'Vers le Cloître' (_Les Débâcles_). + +[13] 'Un Soir' (_Au Bord de la Route_). + +[14] 'Fleur Fatale' (_Les Débâcles_). + +[15] 'La Morte' (_Les Flambeaux Noirs_). + +[16] 'Le Roc' (_Ibid._). + +[17] 'Fleur Fatale' (_Les Débâcles_). + +[18] 'Le Roc' (_Les Flambeaux Noirs_). + +[19] 'Les Nombres' (_Ibid._). + +[20] 'Celui de la Fatigue' (_Les Apparus dans mes Chemins_). + +[21] 'La Joie' (_Les Visages de la Vie_). + +[22] _Ecce Homo!_ + + + + +FLIGHT INTO THE WORLD + + On boit sa soif, on mange sa faim.--É.V., 'L'Amour.' + +In this crisis the negation was driven to the last possible limits. The +sick man had denied not only the outer world, but himself as well. +Nothing had remained but vexation, disgust, and torment. + + La vie en lui ne se prouvait + Que par l'horreur qu'il en avait.[1] + +He had arrived at the last possibility, at that possibility which means +destruction or transformation. The at first purely physical pain of the +supersensitive organs of the senses had become a moral depression; the +depression had become psychic suffering; and this again had gradually +turned in a grandiose progression not only to pain in the individual +thing but to suffering in the all: to _cosmic pain_. For Him, however, +who in His loneliness took the suffering of the whole world upon His +shoulders, who was strong enough to bear it for all the centuries, +humanity has invented the symbol of 'God.' He who is born of earth and +lives to die must perforce break down under so gigantic a burden. Into +the last corner of his ego revengeful life had here driven the man who +denied it, had driven him to the point where now he stood shivering +before the abyss in his own breast, face to face with death and madness. +The physical and poetic organism of Verhaeren was overheated to the most +dangerous and extreme degree. This fever-heat--that of a flagellant +--had brought his blood to the boiling-point; it was filling the chamber +of his breast with pictures of such overwhelming horror that the +explosion of self-destruction could only be prevented by opening the +valve. + +There were only two means of flight from this destruction: flight into +the past--or flight into a new world. Many, Verlaine for instance, had +in such catastrophes, wherein the whole structure of their lives tumbled +to the ground, fled into the cathedrals of Catholicism rather than stand +in solitude under the threatening sky. Verhaeren, however, though an +inspired faith is one of the most living sources of his poetical power, +was more afraid of the past than of the Unknown. _He freed himself from +the immense pressure upon him by fleeing into the world_. He who in his +pride had conceived the whole process of the world as a personal affair, +he who had tried to solve the eternal discord, the undying 'yes' and +'no' of life in his own lonely self, now rushes into the very midst of +things and involves himself in their process. He who previously had felt +everything only subjectively, only in isolation, now objectifies +himself; he who previously had shut himself off from reality, now lets +his veins pulse in harmony with the breathing organism of life. He +relinquishes his attitude of pride; he surrenders himself; lavishes +himself joyously on everything; exchanges the pride of being alone for +the immense pleasure of being everywhere. _He no longer looks at all +things in himself, but at himself in all things_. But the poet in him +frees himself, quite in Goethe's sense, by symbols. Verhaeren drives his +superabundance out of himself into the whole world, just as Christ in +the legend drove the devils out of the madman into the swine. The heat, +the fever of his feeling--which, concentrated in his too narrow chest, +were near bursting it--now animate with their fire the whole world +around him, which of old had been to him congealed with ice. All the +evil powers, which had slunk around him in the trappings of nightmares, +he now transforms to shapes of life. He hammers away at them and shapes +them anew; he is himself the smith of that noble poem of his, the smith +of whom he says: + + Dans son brasier, il a jeté + Les cris d'opiniâtreté, + La rage sourde et séculaire; + Dans son brasier d'or exalté, + Maître de soi, il a jeté + Révoltes, deuils, violences, colères, + Pour leur donner la trempe et la clarté + Du fer et de l'éclair.[2] + +He objectifies his personality in the work of art, hammering out of the +cold blocks, that weighed upon him with the weight of iron, monuments +and statues of pain. All the feelings which of old weighed down upon him +like dull fog, formless and prisoned in dream like nightmares, now +become clear statues, symbols in stone of his soul's experiences. The +poet has torn his fear, his burning, moaning, horrible fear, out of +himself, and poured it into his bell-ringer, who is consumed in his +blazing belfry. He has turned the monotony of his days to music in his +poem of the rain; his mad fight against the elements, which in the end +break his strength, he has shaped into the image of the ferryman +struggling against the current that shatters his oars one after the +other. His cruel probing of his own pain he has visualised in the idea +of his fishermen, who with their nets all in holes go on fishing up +nothing but suffering on suffering out of the sombre stream; his evil +and red lusts he has spiritualised in his _Aventurier_, in the +adventurer who returns home from a far land to celebrate his wedding +feast with his dead love. Here his feelings are shaped no longer in +moods, in the fluid material of dreams, but in the infinitely mobile +form of human beings. Here there is symbolism in the highest sense, in +Goethe's sense of liberation. For every feeling that has achieved +artistic shape is as it were conjured away out of the breast. And thus +the too heavy pressure slowly disappears from the poet's being, and the +morbid fever from his work. Now and now only does he recognise the +suicidal cowardice behind the visor of the pride that forced him to fly +from the world, now and now only does he understand that fatal egoism +which had taken refuge beyond the pale of the world: + + J'ai été lâche et je me suis enfui + Du monde, en mon orgueil futile,[3] + +This confession is the last liberating word of the crisis. + +Now his despair--a despair like that of Faust--is overcome. The mood of +Easter morning begins to sound the exulting cry, 'Earth has me +again!'[4] with the anthems of the resurrection. Verhaeren has described +this deliverance, this ascent from illness to health, from the most +despairing 'no' to the most exultant 'yes,' in many symbols, most +beautifully in that magnificent poem wherein St. George the +dragon-slayer bows down to him with his shining lance; and again in that +other poem in which the four gentle sisters approach him and announce +his deliverance: + + L'une est le bleu pardon, l'autre la bonté blanche, + La troisième l'amour pensif, la dernière le don + D'être, même pour les méchants, le sacrifice.[5] + +Goodness and love call to him now from where of old there were only +hatred and despair. And in their approach already he feels the hope of +recovery, the hope of a natural, artistic strength. + + Et quand elles auront, dans ma maison, + Mis de l'ordre à mes torts, plié tous mes remords + Et refermé, sur mes péchés, toute cloison, + En leur pays d'or immobile, où le bonheur + Descend, sur des rives de fleurs entr'accordées, + Elles dresseront les hautes idées, + En sainte-table, pour mon cÅ“ur.[6] + +This feeling of recovery grows more and more secure, more and more the +mist parts before the approaching sun of health. Now the poet knows that +he has been wandering in the dark galleries of mines, that he has been +hammering a labyrinth through the hard rock of hatred instead of walking +the same path as his fellow-men in the light. And at last, bright and +exultant, high above the shy voices of hope and prayer, the sudden +triumph of certainty rings out. For the first time Verhaeren finds the +form of the poem of the future--the dithyramb. Where of old, confused +and lonely, _le carillon noir_ of pain sounded, now all the strings of +the heart vibrate and sing. + + Sonnez toutes mes voix d'espoir! + Sonnez en moi; sonnez, sous les rameaux, + En des routes claires et du soleil![7] + +And now the path proceeds in light 'vers les claires métamorphoses.'[8] + +This flight into the world was the great liberation. Not only has the +body grown strong again and rejoices in the wandering and the way, but +the soul too has become cheerful, the will has grown new wings that are +stronger than the old, and the poet's art is filled with a fresh blood +red with life. The deliverance is perceptible even in Verhaeren's verse, +which with its delicate nerves reproduces all the phases of his soul. +For his poetry, which at first in the indifference of its picturesque +description preserved the cold form of the Alexandrine, and then, in the +grim monotony of the crisis, tried to represent the void waste of +feeling by a terrifying, gruesomely beautiful uniformity of rhythm, this +poem of a sudden, as though out of a dream, starts into life, awakens +like an animal from sleep, rears, prances, curvets; imitates all +movements, threatens, exults, falls into ecstasy: in other words, all of +a sudden, and independently of all influences and theories, he has won +his way to the _vers libre,_ free verse. Just as the poet no longer +shuts the I world up in himself, but bestows himself on the world, the +poem too no longer seeks to lock the world up obstinately in its +four-cornered prison, but surrenders itself to every feeling, every +rhythm, every melody; it adapts itself, distends; with its foaming +voluptuous joy it can fold in its embrace the illimitable length and +breadth of cities, can contract to pick up the loveliness of one fallen +blossom, can imitate the thundering voice of the street, the hammering +of machines, and the whispering of lovers in a garden of spring. _The +poem can now speak in all the languages of feeling, with all the voices +of men; for the tortured, moaning cry of an individual has become the +voice of the universe._ + +But together with this new delight the poet feels the debt which he has +withheld from his age. He beholds the lost years in which he lived only +for himself, for his own little feeling, instead of listening to the +voice of his time. With a remarkable concordance of genius Verhaeren's +work here expresses what Dehmel--in the same year perhaps--fashioned +with such grandeur in 'The Mountain Psalm,' the poem in which, looking +down from the heights of solitude to the cities in their pall of smoke, +he cries in ecstasy: + + Was weinst du, Sturm?--Hinab, Erinnerungen! + dort pulst im Dunst der Weltstadt zitternd Herz! + Es grollt ein Schrei von Millionen Zungen + nach Glück und Frieden: Wurm, was will dein Schmerz! + Nicht sickert einsam mehr von Brust zu Brüsten, + wie einst die Sehnsucht, als ein stiller Quell; + heut stöhnt ein _Volk_ nach Klarheit, wild und gell, + und du schwelgst noch in Wehmutslüsten? + + Siehst du den Qualm mit dicken Fäusten drohn + dort überm Wald der Schlote und der Essen? + Auf deine Reinheitsträume fällt der Hohn + der Arbeit! fühl's: sie ringt, von Schmutz zerfressen. + Du hast mit deiner Sehnsucht bloss gebuhlt, + in trüber Glut dich selber nur genossen; + schütte die Kraft aus, die dir zugeflossen, + und du wirst frei vom Druck der Schuld![9] + +Pour out the power that has flowed in upon thee! Surrender thyself! That +too is Verhaeren's ecstatic cry at this hour. Opposites touch. _Supreme +solitude is turned to supreme fellowship_. The poet feels that +self-surrender is more than self-preservation. All at once he sees +behind him the frightful danger of this self-seeking pain. + + Et tout à coup je m'apparais celui + Qui s'est, hors de soi-même, enfui + Vers le sauvage appel des forces unanimes.[10] + +And he who in days gone by had fled from this appeal into cold solitude, +now casts himself ecstatically into the arms of the world, with the I +deepest yearning + + De n'être plus qu'un tourbillon + Qui se disperse au vent mystérieux des choses.[11] + +He feels that in order to live to the full all the greatness and beauty +of this fiery world, he must multiply himself, be a thousandfold and ten +thousandfold what he is. 'Multiplie-toi!' Be manifold. Surrender +thyself! For the first time this cry bursts up like a flame. Be +manifold! + + Multiplie et livre-toi! Défais + Ton être en des millions d'êtres; + Et sens l'immensité filtrer et transparaître.[12] + +Only from this brotherhood with all things accrue the possibilities of +being a modern poet. Only by self-surrender to everything that is could +Verhaeren attain to so grandiose a conception of contemporary +manifestations, only thus could he become the poet of the democracy of +cities, of industrialism, of science, the poet of Europe, the poet of +our age. Only such a pantheistic feeling could create this intimate +relationship between the world of self and the world surrounding self, +the relationship which subsequently ends in an unparalleled identity: +only so despairing a 'no' could be transformed to so enraptured a 'yes,' +only one who had fled from the world could possess it with such passion. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] 'Un Soir' (_Au Bord de la Route_). + +[2] 'Le Forgeron' (_Les Villages Illusoires_). + +[3] 'Saint Georges' (_Les Apparus dans mes Chemins_). + +[4] Goethe's _Faust_, 1. 784. + +[5] 'Les Saintes' (_Les Apparus dans mes Chemins_). + +[6] 'Les Saintes' (_Les Apparus dans mes Chemins_). + +[7] 'Saint Georges' (_Ibid_). + +[8] 'Le Forgeron' (_Les Villages Illusoires_). + +[9] 'Why weepest thou, O storm?--Down, memories! Yonder in the smoke +pulses the great city's trembling heart! A million grumbling tongues are +crying for peace and happiness: worm, what would thy pain! Yearning no +longer trickles lonely from breast to breasts, a quiet source and no +more: to-day a _nation_ groans, and with wild, shrill voices demands +clearness--and thou still revellest in the joys of melancholy? + +'Seest thou the reek and smoke threatening yonder over the forest of +flues and chimneys? Upon thy dreams of purity falls the scorn of labour! +Feel it: labour is struggling, eaten up with dirt! Thou hast but +wantoned with thy yearning, thou hast but enjoyed thyself in turbid +heat; pour out the power that has flowed in upon thee, and thou shalt be +free from the burden of guilt!'--'Bergpsalm' (_Aber die Liebe_). + +[10] 'La Foule' (_Les Visages de la Vie_). + +[11] 'Celui du Savoir' (_Les Apparus dans mes Chemins_). + +[12] 'La Forêt' (_Les Visages de la Vie_). + + + + + +PART II + +CONSTRUCTIVE FORCES + + +LES CAMPAGNES HALLUCINÉES--LES VILLAGES ILLUSOIRES +--LES VILLES TENTACULAIRES--LES DRAMES + +1893-1900 + + + + + +CONTEMPORARY FEELING + + J'étais le carrefour où tout se rencontrait.--É.V., 'Le Mont.' + + +Verhaeren's deliverance from the stifling clasp of his crisis was a +flight to realities. He saved himself by no longer fixing his gaze +rigidly on himself and deeply probing every feeling of joy and torment, +but by turning to the world of phenomena and flinging himself on its +problems. He has no longer to stand in solitude facing the world; his +desire is to multiply himself, to realise himself in everything that is +alive, in everything that expresses a will, an idea, a form, anything at +all animated. His poetic aim now is, not so much to analyse himself to +himself, as to analyse himself in the whole world. + +To realities, and particularly to the realities of our day, lyric poets +had previously felt themselves alien. It had long been a commonplace to +speak of the danger to art of industrialism, of democracy, of this age +of machinery which makes pur life uniform, kills individuality, and +drowns romance in actualities. All these poets have looked upon the new +creations, machines, railways, monster cities, the telegraph, the +telephone, all the triumphs of engineering, as a drag on the soaring of +poetry. Ruskin preached that workshops should be demolished and chimneys +razed to the ground; Tolstoy pointed to primitive man, who produces all +his requirements from his own resources independently of any community, +and saw in him the moral and æsthetic ideal of the future. In poetry, +the past had gradually come to be identified with the poetical. People +were enamoured of the glory that was Greece, of mail-coaches and narrow, +crooked streets; they were filled with enthusiasm for all foreign +cultures, and decried that of our own time as a phase of degeneration. +Democracy, levelling all ranks and confining even the poet to the +middle-class profession of author, seemed, as a social order, to be the +correlation of machinery which, by the constructive skill of workshops, +renders all manual dexterity unnecessary. All the poets, who were glad +to avail themselves of the practical advantages provided by technical +science, who had no objection to covering immense distances in the +minimum time, who accepted the comfort of the modern house, the luxury +of modern conditions of life, increased pecuniary rewards and social +independence, refused obstinately to discover in these advantages a +single poetic motive, a single object of inspiration, the least stimulus +or ecstasy. Poetry had by degrees come to be something which was the +very opposite of what-, ever is useful; all evolution seemed to these +poets to be, from the point of view of culture, retrogression. + +Now it is Verhaeren's great exploit that he effected a transmutation +poetic values. He discovered the sublime in the far-spread serried ranks +of democracy; beauty he found not only where it adapts itself to +traditional ideas, but also where, still hidden by the cotyledon of the +new, it is just beginning to unfold. By rejecting no phenomenon, in so +far as an inward sense and a necessity dwelt in it, he infinitely +extended the boundaries of the lyric art. He found a fruitful soil in +the very places where all other poets despaired of poetic seed. He and +he alone, who had for so long been eating his heart out in fierce +isolation, feels the strength and fulness of society, the poetical +element in the massed strength of great cities and in great inventions. +_His deepest longing, his most sublime exploit is the lyric discovery of +the new beauty in new things._ + +The only way to this feat lay for him through the conviction that beauty +does not express anything absolute, but something that changes with +circumstances and with men; that beauty, like everything that is subject +to evolution, is constantly changing. Yesterday's beauty is not to-day's +beauty. Beauty is no more opposed than anything else to that tendency to +spiritualisation which is the most characteristic symptom ind result of +all culture. Physiologists have proved that the physical strength of +modern man is inferior to that of his ancestors, but that his nervous +system is more developed, so that strength is more and more concentrated +in the intellect. The Hellenic hero was the wrestler, the expression of +a body harmoniously developed in every limb, the perfection of strength +and skill; the hero of our time is the thinker, the ideal of +intellectual strength and suppleness. And since our only way of +estimating the perfection of things is by the ideal of our personal +feeling, the form of beauty likewise has been transformed and become +intellectual. And even when we seek it in the body, as, for instance, in +the ideal woman's figure, we have grown accustomed to seeing perfection +not so much in robustness and plumpness as in a noble, slender play of +lines which mysteriously expresses the soul. Beauty is turning away more +and more from the outer surface, from the physical, to the interior +aspects, to the psychic. In proportion as motive forces hide themselves +and as harmony becomes less obvious, beauty intellectualises itself. It +is becoming for us not so much a beauty of appearance as a beauty of; +aim. If we are to admire the telegraph or the telephone, we shall not be +satisfied with considering the exterior forms, the network of wires, the +keys, the receivers; we shall be impressed rather by the ideal beauty, +by the idea of a vibrating spark leaping over countries and whole +continents. A machine is not wonderful on, account of its rattling, +rusty, iron framework, but by the idea, deep-seated in its body, which +is the principle of its magical activity. A modern idea of beauty must +be adapted not only to the idea of beauty of the past, but also to that +of the future. And the future of æsthetics is a kind of ideology, or, as +Renan expresses it, an identity with the sciences. We shall lose the +habit of understanding things only by our senses, of seeing their +harmony only on their exterior surface, and we shall have to learn how +to conceive their intellectual aims, their inner form, their psychic +organisation, as beauty. + +For these new things are only ugly when they are regarded with the eyes +of a past century, when our contemporaries, jealously guarding a +reverent over-estimation, valuing the rust and not the gold, despise +modern works of art, and pay a thousand times too dear for the +indifferent productions of a past age. Only in this state of feeling is +it possible to esteem mail-coaches poetical and locomotives ugly; only +thus is it possible for poets, who have not learned to see with +emancipated and independent eyes, to assume such a hostile attitude, or +at the best an indifferent attitude, to our realities. Let us remember +Nietzsche's beautiful words: 'My formula for grandeur in man is _amor +fati_: that a man should ask for nothing else, either in the past or in +the future, in all eternity. We must not only endure what is necessary, +still less conceal it--all idealism is lying in necessity's face--but +we must _love_ it.'[1] And in this sense some few in our days have loved +what is new, first as a necessity, and then as beauty. A generation ago +now, Carlyle was the first to preach the heroism of everyday life, and +exhorted the poets of his day not to describe the greatness they found +in mouldy chronicles, but to look for it where it was nearest to them, +in the realities around them. Constantin Meunier has found the idea of a +new sculpture in democracy, Whistler and Monet have discovered in the +smoky breath of this age of machinery a new tone of colour which is not +less beautiful than Italy's eternal azure and the halcyon sky of Greece. +It is only from the vast agglomerations, the immense dimensions of the +new world that Walt Whitman has derived the strength and power of his +voice. The whole difficulty which thus far has permitted only a few to +serve the new beauty in the new things lies in the fact that our age is +not yet a period of decided conviction, but only one of transition. The +victory of machinery is not yet complete; handiwork still subsists, +little towns still flourish, it is still possible to take refuge in an +idyll, to find the old beauty in some sequestered corner. Not till the +poet is shut off from all flight to inherited ideals will he be forced +to change himself into a new man. For the new things have not yet +organically developed their beauty. Every new thing on its first +appearance is blended with something repellent, brutal, and ugly; it is +only gradually that its inherent form shapes itself æsthetically. The +first steamers, the first locomotives, the first automobiles, were ugly. +But the slender, agile torpedo-boats of to-day, the bright-coloured, +noiselessly--gliding automobiles with their hidden mechanism, the great, +broad-chested Pacific Railway engines of to-day, are impressive by their +outward form alone. Our huge shops, such as those which Messel built in +Berlin, display a beauty in iron and glass which is hardly less than +that of the cathedrals and palaces of old time. Certain great things, +such as the Eiffel Tower, the Forth Bridge, modern men-of-war, furnaces +belching flame, the Paris boulevards, have a new beauty beyond anything +which past ages had to show. These new things compel a new enhancement +of value, on the one hand by the idea that moves them, on the other hand +by their democratic grandeur and their vast dimensions--equalled by none +but the very greatest works of antiquity. But whatever is beautiful +must, sooner or later, be conceived of as poetry. And thus, it is quite +sure, Verhaeren has only been one of the first to build bridges from the +old to the new time; others will come who will celebrate the new +beauties in the new things--gigantic cities, engines, industrialism, +democracy, this fiery striving for new standards of greatness--and they +will not only be compelled to find the new beauties, they will also +have to establish new laws for this new order, a different morality, a +different religion, a different synthesis for this new conditionality. +the poetic transmutation of the beautiful is only a first beginning of +the poetic transmutation of the feeling of life. + +But a poet never finds anything in things save his own temperament. If +he is melancholy, the world in his books is void of sense, all lights +are extinguished, laughter dies; if he is passionate, all feelings +seethe in a fiery froth as though in a cauldron, and foam up in angry +happenings. Whereas the real world is manifold, and contains the elixirs +of pleasure and pain, confidence and despair, love and hate, only as +elements so to speak, the world of great poets is the world of one +single feeling. And so Verhaeren too sees all things in their new beauty +with the feelings of his own life only, only with energy. In these the +fiery years of his prime it is not harmony that he seeks, but energy, +power. For him a thing is the more beautiful the more purpose, will, +power, energy it contains. And since the whole world of to-day is +over-heated with effort and energy; since our great towns are nothing +but centres of multiplied energy; since machinery expresses nothing save +force tanied and organised; since innumerable crowds are yoked in +harmonious action--to him the world is full of beauty. He loves the new +age because it does not isolate effort but condenses it, because it is +not scattered but concentrated for action. And of a sudden everything +he sees appears to be filled with soul. All that has will, all that has +an aim in view--man, machine, crowd, city, money; all that vibrates, +works, hammers, travels, exults; all that propagates itself and is +multiplied, all that strives to be creation; all that bears in itself +fire, impulse, electricity, feeling--all this rings again in his verse. +All that of old had acted upon him as being cold and dead and hostile is +now inspired with will and energy, and lives its minute; in this +multiple gear there is nothing that is merely dust or useless +ornamentation; everything is creation, everything is working its way +towards the future. The town, this piled-up Babylon of stones and men, +is of a sudden a living being, a vampire sucking the strength of the +land; the factories, that had seemed to him nothing but an unsightly +mass of masonry, now become the creators of a thousand things, which in +their turn create new things out of themselves. All at once Verhaeren is +the socialist poet, the poet of the age of machinery, of democracy, and +of the European race. And energy fills his poetry too: it is strength +let loose, enthusiasm, paroxysm, ecstasy, whatever you like to call it; +but always active, glowing, moving strength; never rest, always +activity. His poem is no longer declamation, no longer the marmoreal +monument of a mood, but a crying aloud, a fight, a convulsive starting, +a stooping down and a springing up again; it is a battle materialised. +For him all values have been transmuted. It is just what had repelled +him most--London, monster cities, railway stations, Exchanges, which now +lure him most of all as poetic problems. The more a thing seems to +resist beauty--the more he has first to discover its beauty by fighting +it and wrestling with it in torment--with so much the greater ecstasy +does he now extol it. The strength which had murderously raged against +itself now, in creative ecstasy, breaks into the world. To tear down +resistance, to snatch beauty from its most hidden corner, is now for him +a tenfold strength and joy of creation. _Verhaeren now creates the poem +of the great city in the dionysiac sense_; the hymn to our own time, to +Europe; creates ecstasy, renewed and renewed again, in life. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] _Ecce Homo!_ + + + + +TOWNS ('LES VILLES TENTACULAIRES') + + Le siècle et son horreur se condensent en elles + Mais leur âme contient la minute éternelle. + É.V., 'Les Villes.' + + +When a man just recovered from illness steps for the first time with +arms outspread, and as though climbing up from a dungeon, into the light +of day, he is filled with a bliss beyond measure by the open air +caressing him on all sides, by the orgies of the sunlight, the cataracts +of deafening din: with a cry of infinite exultation he takes into +himself the symphony of life. And from this first moment of his recovery +Verhaeren was seized by a limitless thirst for the intoxication of life, +as though with one single leap he would make good the lost years of his +loneliness, of his illness, and of his crisis. His eyes, his ears, his +nerves, all his senses, which had been a-hungered, now pounce on things +with a pleasure that is almost murderous, and snatch everything to +themselves in a frenzy of greed. At this time Verhaeren travelled from +country to country, as though he would take possession of all Europe. He +was in Germany, in Berlin, in Vienna, and in Prague; always a lonely +wanderer; quite alone; ignorant of the language, and listening only to +the voice of the town itself, to the strange, sombre murmuring, to the +surge of the European metropolises. In Bayreuth he paid his devotions at +the tomb of Wagner, whose music of ecstasy and passion he absorbed in +Munich; in Colmar he learned to understand his beloved painter Mathias +Grünewald; he saw and loved the tragic landscapes of northern Spain, +those gloomy, treeless mountains, whose threatening silhouettes +afterwards became the background of the fiery happenings in his drama of +_Philip II._; in Hamburg he was an excited spectator, day by day, of the +stupendous traffic, the coming and going of the ships, the unloading and +the loading of cargoes. Everywhere where life was intensive, expressive, +and animated with a new energy, he passionately loved it. It is +characteristic of his temperament that the harmonious beauty of peaceful +and empty, of sleeping and dreaming cities appealed to him less than +modern cities in their pall of soot and smoke. Almost intentionally his +affection turns from the traditional ideal to one yet unknown. Florence, +for many centuries the symbol of all poets, disappointed him: the +Italian air was too mild, these contours were too meagre, too dreamy the +streets. But London, this piled-up conglomeration of dwellings and +workshops; this town that might have been cast in bronze; this teeming +labyrinth of dingy streets; this ever-beating, restless heart of the +world's trade with its smoke of toil threatening to eclipse the sun; +this was to him a revelation. Just the industrial towns, which had thus +far tempted no poet; those towns which roll up the vault of their leaden +sky with their own fog and smoke, which confine their inhabitants in +leagues and leagues of congested masonry, these attract him. He, who +revels in colour, grew fond of Paris, to which, since then, he has +returned every year for the winter months. Just what is restless and +busy, confused and breathless, hunted, eager, feverish, hot with an +ardour as of rut, all this Babylonian medley lures him. He loves this +pell-mell multiplicity and its strange music. Often he would travel for +hours on the top of heavy omnibuses, to have a bird's-eye view of the +bustling throng, and here he would close his eyes the better to feel the +dull rumour, this surging sound which, in its ceaselessness, is not +unlike the rustling of a forest, beating against his body. No longer as +in his earlier books does he follow the existence of simple callings; he +loves the ascension of handiwork to mechanical labour, in which the aim +is invisible, and only the grandiose organisation is revealed. And +gradually this interest became the motive interest of his life. +Socialism, which in those years was becoming strong and active, fell +like a red drop into the morbid paleness of his poetic work. +Vandervelde, the leader of the Labour Party, became his friend. And +when, at this stage, the party founded the Maison du Peuple at Brussels, +he readily helped, gave lectures at the Université Libre, took part in +all the projects, and afterwards, wards, in the most beautiful vision +of his poetical work, lifted them far above the political and actual +into the great events of all humanity. His life, now inwardly +established, henceforth beats with a strong and regular rhythm. He had +in the meantime, by his marriage, attained a personal appeasement, a +counterpoise for his unbridled restlessness. Now his wild ecstasies have +their fixed point, from which they can survey the fiery vortex of the +new phenomena. The morbid pictures, the feverish hallucinations, now +become clear visions; not by flashes of lightning, but in a steady, +beaming light are the horizons of our time now illuminated for him. + +Now that he steps boldly into life, his first problem is to come to an +understanding with the world around him, with his fellow-men, with the +city itself. But it is not the city he lives in which interests him in a +provincial sense, but the ideal, modern city, the monster city in +general, this strange and uncanny thing that like a vampire has snatched +to herself all the strength of the soil and of men to form a new +residuum of power. She crowds together the contrasts of life; grades, in +unexpected layers, immense riches over the most wretched poverty; +strengthens opposing forces, and goads them to hostility, goads them to +that desperate battle in which Verhaeren loves to see all things +involved. The grandeur of this new organism is beyond the æsthetics of +the past; and new and strange before Nature stand men also, with +another rhythm, a hotter breath, quicker movements, wilder desires than +were known to any association of men, to any calling or caste, of a +previous time. It is a new outlook which not only sweeps the distance, +but has also to reckon with height, with the piled tiers of houses, with +new velocities and new conditions of space. A new blood, money, feeds +these cities, a new energy fires them; they are driven to procreate a +new faith, a new God, and a new art. Their dimensions, terrific, and of +a beauty hitherto unknown, defy measurement; the order that rules is +hidden in the earth behind a pathless wilderness. + + Quel océan, ses cÅ“urs? ... + Quels nÅ“uds de volonté serrés en son mystère![1] + +cries out the poet in wonderment as he strides through the city and is +overpowered by her grandeur: + + Toujours en son triomphe ou ses défaites, + Elle apparaît géante, et son cri sonne et son nom luit.[2] + +He feels that an enormous energy proceeds from her; he is conscious that +her atmosphere rests with a new pressure on his body, that his blood +quickens to keep pace with her rhythm. Merely to be near her starts the +thrill of a new delight. + + En ces villes ... + * * * * * + Je sens grandir et s'exalter en moi, + Et fermenter, soudain, mon cÅ“ur multiplié.[3] + +Involuntarily he feels himself becoming dependent on her, feels this +grandiose coupling of energy producing a similar concentration of all +his forces in himself too, feels his fever becoming infectious like her +own, and feels--with an intensity unknown to any other poet of our +days--the identity of his personality with the soul of the city. He +knows she is dangerous, knows she will fill him with all restlessness, +overheat him and excite him, confuse him with her hostile contrasts. + + Voici la ville en or des rouges alchimies, + Où te fondre le cÅ“ur en un creuset nouveau + Et t'affoler d'un orage d'antinomies + Si fort qu'il foudroiera tes nerfs jusqu'au cerveau.[4] + +But he knows that she will impregnate him as well, give him power from +her strength. There will never be a great man again who will pass her +by, who will not be thrilled by her sensation, who will not live with +her, and by her grow. Henceforth all new and strong men will stand in +reciprocal action with her. + +This great recognition of a fact is, as we have seen, not spontaneous, +but painfully acquired. For in the sense of the old beauty the aspect of +a modern city is frightful. She is a sleepless, an ever wakeful woman; +she does not, like Nature, sometimes rest; she is never silent. +Restlessly she sucks men into her whirlpool; ceaselessly she pricks +their nerves; day and night her life pulses. By day she is as grey as +lead; a sultry shuttle of passions; a dark mine in which men, buried in +the mines of her streets, are forced to unresting toil. How dense are +these virgin forests of bronze and stone; and of all these thousands of +streets 'à poumons lourds et haletants, vers on ne sait quels buts +inquiétants,'[5] not one seems to lead into the open, into the light of +day. Monotonous, like dull eyes, glare the millions of windows; and the +darksome caverns in which men, themselves like machines, sit by +machines, thunder in the unseizable rhythm of petrified exertion. Not a +ray is reflected on them from the eternal; hostile, repulsive, and grey +the town pants in the puffed smoke of her daily labour. But night, +softening all harsh lines, fierily welds the lumbering limbs together +into something new. By night the town is turned into one great +seduction. Passion, fettered in the day-time, breaks its chains: + + ... Pourtant, lorsque les soirs + Sculptent le firmament de leurs marteaux d'ébène, + La ville au loin s'étale et domine la plaine + Comme unnocturne et colossal espoir; + Elle surgit: désir, splendeur, hantise; + Sa clarté se projette en lueurs jusqu'aux cieux, + Son gaz myriadaire en buissons d'or s'attise, + Ses rails sont des chemins audacieux + Vers le bonheur fallacieux + Que la fortune et la force accompagnent; + Ses murs se dessinent pareils à une armée + Et ce qui vient d'elle encor de brume et de fumée + Arrive en appels clairs vers les campagnes.[6] + +These fiery eruptions Verhaeren shapes in grandiose visions. There is +the vision of the music halls: wheels of fire revolve round a house, +blazing letters climb up façades and lure the crowds to sit in front of +the brilliant footlights. I Here the people's hunger for sensation is +fed full, and art is cruelly murdered day by day. Here tedium is tamed +for an hour or so, and whipped up with colour, flame, and music for +another pleasure that is waiting outside, as soon as the illusion here +sinks into the night: + + Et minuit sonne et la foule s'écoule + --Le hall fermé--parmi les trottoirs noirs; + Et sous les lanternes qui pendent, + Rouges, dans la brume, ainsi que des viandes, + Ce sont les filles qui attendent....[7] + +they the harlots, 'les promeneuses,' 'les veuves d'elles-mêmes,'[8] who +live on the sensual hunger of the masses. For sensual pleasure too is +organised in cities, is guided into canals, like all instincts. But the +primordial instinct is the same. The hunger which out in the fields and +in the country was still pleasure in healthy food, in frothing beer, has +here been converted into the idea of money. Money is what everybody +hungers for here; money is the meaning of the town. 'Boire et manger de +l'or'[9] is the hot dream of the crowd. Everything is expressed by +money, 'tout se définit par des monnaies';[10] all values are +subordinate to this new value, monetary value. Superb is the vision of +the bazaar, where, on all the counters, in the many stories, everything +is sold, not only as in reality objects in common use, but, in a loftier +symbolism, ethical values as well: convictions and opinions, fame and +name, honour and power, all the laws of life. But all this fiery blood +of money flows together in the great heart of the city, flows into the +Exchange, that greedy maw that swallows all the gold and spits it out +again, which smelts all this hectic fever and then pours it flaming into +all the veins of the city. Everything can be bought, even pleasure: in +back streets, in _l'étal_, in the haunts where debauch lies in wait, +women sell themselves as goods are sold in the bazaar. But this energy +is not always regulated, not always made to flow between dikes. Here +too, as in Nature, there are sudden catastrophes. Sometimes revolt is +kindled, flashes up instantaneously, and this stream of money blazes +itself a new trail. The masses pour out of their dismal caverns, greed +takes possession of men, and the myriad-headed monster fights and bleeds +for this one thing, this red-burning, relucent gold. + +But the great and powerful thing in these towns is not passion; it is +the hidden strength behind these passions, the noble order that keeps +them in their proper limits, and holds them in check. This rumbling +chaos, this inundation of things doomed to die, is dominated in the +_Villes Tentaculaires_ by three or four figures standing like +statues--the tamers of passions. They are what kings and priests were of +old, they who have the power of bridling ebullient energies and turning +them to use. With hands of iron they hold down this wild and dangerous +animal, they, the new rulers, statesmen, generals, demagogues, +organisers. For the town is an animal in its movements, a beast in its +passions, a brute in its instincts, a monster in its strength. It is +ugly, like all rut. It cannot be contemplated with a pure pleasure, like +a landscape gently and harmoniously fading in forest verdure; it rather +evokes, at first, loathing, hatred, caution, and hostility. But that is +the great thing in Verhaeren, that he always overcomes whatever is +hostile, pain and torment, by a great vista, that in this panting steam +of the unæsthetic he already sees the flame of the new beauty. Here for +the first time is, seen the beauty of factories, _les usines +rectangulaires,_ the fascination of a railway station, the new beauty in +the new things. If the town is indeed ugly in its denseness, ugly in the +sense of all classical ideals; if the picture of it is indeed I cruel +and frightful; it is yet not unfertile. 'Le siècle et son horreur se +condensent en elle, mais son âme contient la minute éternelle.' And this +I feeling, that in her the minute of eternity is contained, that she is +the new thing risen above all the pasts, a new thing that one must +perforce come to terms with, this feeling makes her momentous and +beautiful to the poet. If her form is loathsome, grey, and sombre, her +idea, her organisation, are grandiose and admirable. And here, as +always, where admiration finds a pivot, it can give the whole world the +swing from negation to assent. + +But Verhaeren is by this time too little of an artist, too much +interested in all the problems of life, to be able to contemplate the +idea of the modern city from the æsthetic side alone. It is for him a +still more important symbol for the expression of contemporary feeling. + +Not only the problem of the new social stratification is poetically +digested in his trilogy, but also one of the most burning and pressing +questions of political economy as of politics, the struggle between the +centrifugal and the centripetal power, the struggle between agrarianism +and industrialism. Town and country purchase their prosperity, the one +by the impoverishment of the other. Production and trade, however much +one is the condition of the other, at their extreme points are hostile +forces. And how, in our days in Europe, the victory between town and +country is being decided in favour of the town; how, gradually, the town +is absorbing the best strength of the provinces--the problem of the +_déracinés_--this has for the first time in poetry been described by +Verhaeren in his magnificent vision of _Les Villes Tentaculaires_. The +cities have sprung up like mushrooms. Millions have conglomerated. But +where have they come from? From what sources have these immense masses +suddenly streamed into the mighty reservoirs? The answer is quick to +come. The heart of the city is fed with the oozing blood of the country. +The country is impoverished. As though they were hallucinated, the +peasants migrate to where gold is minted, to the town that in the +evenings flames across the horizon; to where alone riches lies, and +power. They march away with their carts, to sell their last stick of +furniture, their last rags; they march away with their daughter, to +deliver her up to lust; they march away with their son, to let him +perish in the factories; they march away to dip their hands, they also, +in this roaring river of gold. The fields are deserted. Only the +fantastic figures of idiots stagger along lonely paths; the abandoned +flour-mills are empty, and only turn when the wind smites against them. +Fever rises from the marshes, where the water, no longer gathered into +dikes, spreads putrefaction and pestilence. Beggars drag themselves from +door to door, with the country's barrenness reflected in their eyes; to +the last lingering cultivators come, sinuously, their worst enemies, +_les donneurs de mauvais conseils_. The emigration agent entices them to +wander to the lands of gold, and they squander what they have inherited +from their ancestors, to seek a far-distant hope: + + Avec leur chat, avec leur chien, + Avec, pour vivre, quel moyen? + S'en vont, le soir, par la grand'route.[11] + +And they who are not enticed away by emigration are evicted from hearth +and home by usurers. Villages in which the dance of the kermesse has +long been silent are of a sudden cut in two by a network of railways. +There is no fairness in the fight. The country is conquered because the +blood of its inhabitants has been sucked out of it. 'La plaine est morte +et ne se défend plus.'[12] Everything streams to Oppidomagnum. This is +the name given by Verhaeren in his symbolical drama _Les Aubes_--which, +with the _Campagnes Hallucinées_ and the _Villes Tentaculaires_ forms +the trilogy of the social revolution--to the monster city. This, with +its arms as of a polypus, pitilessly sucks all the strength of the +district round it. From all sides strength streams in upon it. 'Tous les +chemins se rythment vers elle.' Not only from the country does she drink +the strength of men, all the ocean seems to be pouring its waters only +to her port. 'Toute la mer va vers la ville.'[13] The whole sea streams +to the city; all the rolling waves seem only to exist that they may +bring to her this wandering forest of ships. And she absorbs everything, +digests it in the 'noire immensité des usines rectangulaires,'[14] +greedily devours it, to spit it out again as gold. + +But this immense social struggle between the country and the town +expresses, like the other new phases, something yet higher. It is only a +momentary symbol of an eternal schism. The country is the symbol of the +Conservatives. In the country the forms of labour are petrified, calm, +and regular; there life is without haste, and only regulated by the +rotation of the seasons. All sensations, all forms are pure and simple. +These men stand nearer to the freaks of chance: a flash of lightning, a +hailstorm can destroy their labour; and so they fear God, and do not +dare to doubt in Him. The town, however, symbolises progress. In the +thunder of the streets of to-day no Madonna's voice is heard; the life +of the individual is protected from chance by prearranged order; the +fever of the new creates also a yearning for new conditions of life, new +circumstances, for a new God. + + L'esprit des campagnes était l'esprit de Dieu; + Il eut la peur de la recherche et des révoltes, + Il chut; et le voici qui meurt, sous les essieux + Et sous les chars en feu des récoltes.[15] + +If the country was the past, the town is the future. The country only +seeks to keep what it has, to preserve: its character, its beauty, its +God. But the town must first of all create, must make itself the new +beauty, the new faith, and the new God. + + Le rêve ancien est mort et le nouveau se forge. + Il est fumant dans la pensée et la sueur + Des bras fiers de travail, des fronts fiers de lueurs, + Et la ville l'entend monter du fond des gorges + De ceux qui le portent en eux + Et le veulent crier et sangloter aux cieux.[16] + +But we, Verhaeren thinks, must not belong to this world of the past, +this moribund world; no, we who live in towns must think with them, must +live with the new age, create in league with it, and find a new language +for its dumb yearning. A return to nature is no longer possible for us: +evolution cannot be screwed back again. If we have lost great values, we +must replace them by new; if our religious feeling for the old God is +cold and dead, we must create new ideals. We must find new aims that our +ancestors knew not of; in the new forms of the city we must find a new +beauty, in her noises a new rhythm, in her confusion an order, in her +energy an object, in her stammering a language. + +If the towns have destroyed much, they will perhaps create still more. +In their melting-pot professions, races, religions, nations, languages +are blended: + + ...les Babels enfin réalisées + Et les peuples fondus et la cité commune + Et les langues se dissolvant en une.[17] + +'The old order changeth, giving place to new'; and we must not ask +whether the new is better than the old; we must trust that it is so. +The feverish convulsions of the great cities, this unrest, this +screaming torment, cannot be in vain. For they, these pains and +convulsions, are only the birth-throes of the new. But he who has been +the first to feel, with a glad presentiment, this pain of the masses, +this fermentation, as joy, this unrest as hope, must himself be an +authentic new man, one of those who are called to give a poetic answer +to all the complaints and questions of our time. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] 'L'Âme de la Ville' (_Les Villes Tentaculaires_). + +[2] Ibid. (_Ibid._). + +[3] 'La Foule' (_Les Visages de la Vie_). + +[4] 'Les Villes' (_Les Flambeaux Noirs_). + +[5] 'L'Âme de la Ville' (_Les Villes Tentaculaires_). + +[6] 'La Ville' (_Les Campagnes Hallucinées_). + +[7] 'Les Spectacles' (_Les Villes Tentaculaires_). + +[8] 'Les Promeneuses' (_Ibid_.). + +[9] 'La Bourse' (_Ibid._). + +[10] 'Le Bazar' (_Ibid._). + +[11] 'Le Départ' (_Les Campagnes Hallucinées_). + +[12] 'La Plaine' (_Les Villes Tentaculaires_). + +[13] 'Le Port' (_Ibid._). + +[14] 'La Plaine' (_Ibid._). + +[15] 'Vers le Futur' (_Les Villes Tentaculaires_). + +[16] 'L'Âme de la Ville' (_Les Villes Tentaculaires_). + +[17] 'Le Port'(_Ibid._). + + + + +THE MULTITUDE + + Mets en accord ta force avec les destinées + Que la foule, sans le savoir, + Promulgue, en cette nuit d'angoisse illuminée. + É.V., 'La Foule.' + + +That great event which is the modern city was at bottom only possible by +the organisation of the mighty multitudes of the people and the +distribution of their forces. To organise is to weld unlike forces +economically into an organism, to imitate something that has life and +soul, in which nothing is superfluous and everything is necessary; it is +to give a material its uniform strength, to give an idea the flesh and +bones of its shape and of its possibility. Now the town has smelted the +scattered forces of the country into a new material--into the multitude; +it has converted much that used to be individually active force into +mechanical force; it has humbled man to the condition of a handle, a +rolling wheel; it has everywhere tied up the individuality of the single +man in order to produce a new individuality, that of the crowd. For the +multitude as a fact is a new thing. For centuries it was only a symbol, +an idea. The inhabitants of whole countries were logically epitomised in +a number, but with no suggestion of thus comprehending their immediate +unity. Of course, in times past great armies have been known, hordes of +fighting men and nomad tribes; but these only represented a volatile +concentration, too unsettled, too inconstant to procreate an +individuality, an æsthetic and moral value. And even those armies whose +legendary greatness echoes down the centuries, the hordes of Tamerlaine, +the hosts of the Persians, the legions of Rome, how poor is their number +in comparison with the masses of human beings daily herded together in +New York or London or Paris! Only in our own days, only in Oppidomagnum, +has the multitude been welded together finally and for all time, been +hooked together with bands of steel like the wheels of an immense +machine; only recently has the crowd become a living being that grows +and multiplies like a forest. Democracy has given it new intellectual +forms, set a brain in the body, by making the multitude determinate, +subject only to itself. It is a creation of the nineteenth century; it +is a new value in our lives, and one that we must come to terms with; no +less a value for our evolution than the highest values of the past. Walt +Whitman, to whom one must constantly refer in dealing with Verhaeren's +work, although--let it be expressly stated here--Verhaeren quite +independently and unconsciously arrived at the same goal from the same +starting-point, once said: 'Modern science and democracy seemed to be +throwing out their challenge to poetry to put them in its statements in +contradistinction to the songs and myths of the past.'[1] And every +modern poet will have to come to terms with the masses of democracy, +will have to contemplate them synthetically as an individual living +being, as a man, or as a God. In his Utopian drama _Les Aubes_ Verhaeren +has ranged them among the dramatis personæ, and, to express his inner +vision, he has added this stage direction: 'Les groupes agissent comme +un seul personnage à faces multiples et antinomiques.' For, like the +images of Indian gods, they have a hundred arms, but their cry is in +unison; their will is simple; their energy is uniform; one and the same +is their heart, 'le cÅ“ur myriadaire et rouge de la foule.'[2] A +hundred years of life in communion, a hundred years of distress in +common, of hope in common, have welded them together into one unity, +into one new feeling. Sleepless and restless like a dangerous animal +lies the multitude in the monster cities; all the passions of individual +man are hers, vanity, hunger, anger; she has all vices and crimes in +common with her smallest member, man; only, everything in her is +intensified to unknown magnitudes. Everything in her passions is +stupendously superdimensional, beyond calculation, and, in a new sense, +divine. For just as the gods of old were formed after the image of man, +save that they represented man's strength and intelligence magnified to +the hundredth degree, the multitude is the synthesis of individual +forces, the most prolific accumulation of passion. + +With the multitude the individual comes into being, and without her he +perishes. Consciously or unconsciously, every man is subject to her +power. For the modern man is no longer free from the influence of +others, as the tiller of the fields was in olden days, or the shepherd, +or the hunter, each of whom was dependent only on the anger of heaven, +the whims of the earth, on weather and hailstorms, on chance, which he +clad in the august image of his god. The modern man is in all his +feelings determined by the world around him, set in his place in the +ranks, and moved with the ranks like a shuttle to and fro; he is a +dependent in his instincts. We all feel socially; we cannot think away +the others who are round us and in front of us any more than we can +think away the air that nourishes us. We can flee from them, but we +cannot flee away from what has penetrated us from them. For the +multitude rules us like a force of nature, nourishes us with its +feelings. The unsocial man is a fiction. Just as little as in a great +city one can shut off one's room entirely from the noise, the rhythm of +the street, just so little can one think isolatedly, just so little can +the soul keep itself at a distance from the great intellectual +excitements of the multitude. Verhaeren himself made the attempt in the +days when he wrote the verses: + + Mon rêve, enfermons-nous dans ces choses lointaines + Comme en de tragiques tombeaux.[3] + +But the life of reality claimed him again; for society destroys him who +turns away from her, as one is destroyed who shuts himself out from the +fresh air. The poet, too, must involuntarily think with the multitude +and of the multitude. For to the same extent as democracy has exercised +its levelling influence, to the same extent as it has limited +individualities, enrolled the poet among the class of citizens, +diminished the contrasts of chance, it has at the same time matured new +forces in their multiplicity. In democracy the modern poet can find +everything for which the ancients felt constrained to discover gods, +those incalculable forces which bind the individual like enchantment. +The town, the multitude feeds his energy with its exhaustless abundance; +it multiplies his own strength. For everything the individual has lost +is stored in it, great heroism and ecstatic enthusiasm. It is the great +source of the unexpected and the incalculable in our days, the new thing +concerning which no one knows how great it will grow. To have seen in it +an enrichment, instead of a restriction, of the poetic instinct, is one +of the great merits of Verhaeren. For while the majority of +contemporary poets still maintain the fiction of the recluse in his +wistful loneliness, while they recoil from before the multitude as +though from men stricken with the plague, while they create for +themselves an artificial seclusion, and heedlessly go their way past +locomotives and telegraphs, banks and workshops, Verhaeren drinks +greedily from these sources of new strength. + + Comme une vague en des fleuves perdue, + Comme une aile effacée, au fond de l'étendue, + Engouffre-toi, + Mon cÅ“ur, en ces foules battant les capitales! + Réunis tous ces courants + Et prends + Si large part à ces brusques métamorphoses + D'hommes et de choses, + Que tu sentes l'obscure et formidable loi + Qui les domine et les opprime + Soudainement, à coups d'éclairs, s'inscrire en toi.[4] + +For she, 'la foule,' the multitude, is the great transposer of values in +our day. She takes into her bosom and transforms the men who come to her +from the country, from the four winds of heaven; none of us escapes her +levelling power. The most distant races are blended in the city's huge +melting-pot, are adapted to one another, and forthwith become a new +thing, a different thing, a new race, the new race of contemporary man, +who has made his peace with the atmosphere of the great city, who not +only painfully feels the depression of her walls and his divorce from +Nature, but creates himself a new strength and a new feeling of the +universe in this manifold human presence. The great feat of the +multitude is that it accelerates the process of changing values. The +individual elements perish in favour of this individuality of a new +community. Old communities lose their unity, new communities must arise. +America is the first example: here, in a hundred years, one single great +brotherhood, a new type, has been developed from the forces of a +thousand peoples; and in our capitals, in Paris, Berlin, and London, +people are already growing up who are not Frenchmen and not Germans, but +in the first place only Parisians and Berliners, who have a different +accent, a different way of thinking, whose native land is the great +city, the multitude. The inhabitant of the great city, the democratic +man of the multitude, is a sharply defined character. If he is a poet, +his poetry must be social; if he is a thinker, the intelligence of the +masses, the instinct of the many, must be his also. To have attempted +the psychology of this multitude for the first time in poetry is one of +the great feats of audacity for which we must be grateful to Verhaeren. + +But these individual accumulations of men into a multitude, these +combinations of millions into towns, are not isolated. One bond holds +them all together: modern traffic. The distances of reality have +disappeared, and with them national divisions as well. By the side of +the problem of individual conglomerations which only slowly are +transformed into organisms, by the side of the individual races, the +individual masses, now arises a greater synthesis, the synthesis of the +European race. For the men of our continent are no longer so distant, so +strange to one another as they formerly were. Social democracy with its +organisation encompasses the masses from one end of Europe to the other. +To-day the same desires fire the men of Paris, London, St. Petersburg, +Vienna, and Rome. And already one common formula directs their +exertions: money. + + Races des vieux pays, forces désaccordées, + Vous nouez vos destins épars, depuis le temps + Que l'or met sous vos fronts le même espoir battant.[5] + +Independently of the frontiers of countries, on a broad-based +foundation, a unified race, a new community, the European, is in process +of formation. Here desire and reality are near touching. Verhaeren sees +Europe already united by one great common energy. Europe is for him the +land of consciousness. While other continents, distant as though in a +dream, are still living a vegetative life, while Africa and India are +still dreaming as they dreamt in the darkness of primitive times, Europe +is 'la forge où se frappe l'idée,'[6] the great smithy in which all +differences, all individual observations, all results, are hammered and +moulded into a new intellectuality, into _European consciousness_. The +union is not yet inwardly complete; states are still hostile and +ignorant of their community; but already 'le monde entier est repensé +par leurs cervelles.'[7] Already they are working at the transvaluation +of all feeling in the European sense. For a new system of ethics, a new +system of æsthetics, will be required by the European, who, rich by the +past, strong in the feeling of the multitude, is now conscious of +drawing his strength from new masses. Here it is that Verhaeren's work +sings over into Utopia; and in _Les Aubes_, the epilogue to _Les Villes +Tentaculaires,_ this glittering rainbow rises over the visions of +reality to the new ideal; the prophetic dream of a better future rises +over the still struggling present. + +This yearning for the European has been expressed for the first time in +poetry by Verhaeren, almost contemporaneously with Walt Whitman's +hailing of the American and Friedrich Nietzsche's prophecy of the +superman. It would be a tempting task, and full of interest, to set up +the Pan-European in antithesis to the Pan-American. But to say that +Verhaeren was the first of lyric poets to feel as consciously European +as Walt Whitman felt American, is to establish his rank among the most +considerable men of our time. Verhaeren is possibly the only lyric poet +who has felt in accordance with contemporary feeling. That epitomises +his whole claim to gratitude, for it sufficiently expresses the fact +that he has taken to his heart the problem of the multitude; the energy +of social innovations; the æsthetics of organisation; the grandeur of +mechanical production; in a word, the poetry of material things. It is +our own time, the new age, that speaks in his verse; and it speaks in +its new language. This rhythm which he has discovered is no literary +abstraction, but beats in perfect unison with the heart-beat of the +crowd; it is an echo of the panting of our monster cities, of the +clanking of trains, of the cry of the people; his language is new, +because it is no longer the voice of one man, but unites in itself the +many voices of the multitude. He has penetrated deeper than any other +man into the feeling of the masses, and their surf echoes more strongly +in his verse. The hollow rumbling, the bestial and tameless strength of +their voice, the surf of the multitude, has here become shape and music, +the highest identity. With pride one can say of Verhaeren what he +himself vaunts in his 'Captain': 'Il est la foule,'[8] he himself is the +multitude. + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] _A Backward Glance O'er Travelled Roads._ + +[2] 'La Conquête (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[3] 'Sous les Prétoriens' (_Au Bord de la Route_). + +[4] 'La Foule' (_Les Visages de la Vie_). + +[5] 'La Conquête' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[6] _Ibid. (Ibid.)._ + +[7] 'La Conquête' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[8] 'Le Capitaine' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + + + + +THE RHYTHM OF LIFE + + Dites, les rythmes sourds dans l'univers entier! + En définir la marche et la passante image + En un soudain langage; + . . . . . . . . . . . . . . + Prendre et capter cet infini en un cerveau, + Pour lui donner ainsi sa plus haute existence. + É.V., 'Le Verbe'. + + +The rhythm of modern life is a rhythm of excitement. The city with its +multitudes is never completely at rest: even in its repose, in its +silence, there is a secret bubbling as of lava in the bowels of a +volcano, a waiting and watching, a nervous tension tinged with fever. +For the idea of energy in the myriad-headed monster city is so +concentrated, so intensified, that it never loses its rumbling activity. +Rest, a polar feeling, would be the inner negation, the annihilation, of +this new element. True, the city with her teeming masses is not always +in the fever-throes of those great eruptions of passion when through the +arteries of her streets the blood streams suddenly; when all her muscles +seem to contract; when cries and enthusiasm blaze up like a flame; but +always something seems to be expecting this fiery second, just as in +modern man there is always the whipped unrest that is avid of new +things, new experiences. Modern cities are in perpetual vibration; and +so is the multitude from man to man. Even if the individual is not +excited, if his nerves are not always stirring with his own vibration, +they are yet always vibrating in harmony with the obscure resonance of +the universe. The great city's rhythm beats in our very sleep; the new +rhythm, the rhythm of our life, is no longer the regular alternation of +relaxation and repose, it is the steady vibration of an unintermitted +activity. + +Now, a modern poet who wishes to create in real harmony with +contemporary feeling must himself have something of the perpetual +excitement, the unremitting watchfulness, the restless and nervous +sensitiveness of our time; his heart must unconsciously beat in tact +with the rhythm of the world around him. But not only unrest must +flicker in him, not only must that excessive delicacy of feeling which +is almost morbid be in him, this neurasthenic sleeplessness--not only +the negative element of our epoch, but the grandiose as well, the +superdimensional, the spontaneity of the sudden discharge of forces held +in reserve, the overwhelming force of the great eruption. Like the +masses of our towns, he must be so fashioned that a trifle will +stimulate him to the greatest passion, must be so fashioned that he +cannot help being carried away by the intoxication of his own strength. +Just as the masses have, so to speak, organised themselves as a body, +so that there is no individual excitement in them, no irritation and +inflammation of any single part, but so that a reaction of the whole +body responds to every separate irritation, just in the same manner must +the excitement of a modern, a contemporary poet, a poet of a great town, +never be the excitement of a single sense, but, if it is to be strong, +it must quiver through the whole body like an electric shock. His poetic +rhythm must therefore be physically vital; it must envelop all his +feeling and thinking; it must respond to every individual irritation, to +every individual sensation, with the massed weight of feeling of all his +vital forces: the need of a rhythm strained to the full must be, as +Nietzsche has so wonderfully demonstrated in his _Ecce Homo_! a measure +for the strength of the inspiration, a sort of balancing, as it were, of +the pressure and tension of the inspiration. For the poet of to-day, if +he does not wish to remain the poet of the eternal yesterday, must, as a +microcosm, imitate in his passion the macrocosm of the multitude, +wherein also the excitement of the individual is trivial and aimless, +and only the ebullition of the whole fermenting mass is irresistible and +momentous. + +Then, in such poems, the _rhythm of modern life_ will break through. At +this moment we must remember what rhythm really means. The rhythm of a +being is in the last instance nothing but its breathing. Everything that +is alive, every organism, has breath, the interchange and resting-space +between giving and taking. And so breathes a poem too; and it is +worthless if it is not a living thing, if it is not an organism, a body +with a soul. Only in its rhythm does it become alive, as man does in his +breathing. But the diversity, the originality of the rhythm only arises +from the alternation of these drawn breaths. Breathing is different in +those who are calm, excited, joyous, nervous, oppressed, ecstatic. Every +sensation produces its corresponding rhythm. And since every poet in his +individuality represents a new form of inner passion, his poem too must +have this rhythm of his own, the rhythm which expresses his personal +poetic peculiarity just as characteristically as his speaking expresses +an individual accent and dialect. To understand Verhaeren's rhythm we +must remember this basic form of the poetic feeling at the heart of him; +we must compare it with the feeling at the heart of those who have gone +before him. In Victor Hugo there was the earnest, great, soaring rhythm +of the loud speaker, of the preacher who never addresses individuals but +always the whole nation; in Baudelaire there was the regular hymnic +rhythm of the priest of art; in Verlaine the irregular, sweet, and +gentle melody of one speaking in dreams. In Verhaeren, now, there is the +rhythm of a man hurrying, rushing, running; of a restless, passionate +man; the rhythm of the modern, of the Americanised man. It is often +irregular; you hear in it the panting of one who is hunted, who is +hurrying to his goal; you hear his impact with the obstacles he stumbles +against, the sudden standstill of intemperate effort exhausted. But with +him the rhythmic energy is never intellectual, never verbal, never +musical; it is purely emotional, physical. Not only the end of the nerve +vibrates and sounds; not only does the language shake the air; but out +of the whole organism, as though all the nerve-strings had suddenly +begun to sound the alarm, burst the terror and the ecstasy of fever. His +poem is never a state of repose--no more than the multitude is ever +quite repose--it is in a true sense rhythm, passion set in motion. You +feel the excitement of the man in it, motion, the covering of a +distance, activity; never contemplation comfortably resting, or dream +girt with sleep. And as a matter of fact, it is from motion in the +physical sense that nearly all his poems have arisen: Verhaeren has +never composed poetry at his writing-table, but while wandering over the +fields with a rhythmically moved body whose accelerated pace pulses to +the very heart of the poem, or while rushing along through the din and +bustle of streets in great cities. In these poems is that quicker +rolling of the blood that comes from exercise, that jerk of unrest and +passion tearing themselves away from repose. You feel that in this man +feeling is too strong, that he would fain free himself from it, run away +from it in his own body. The feeling is so strong that it turns to +pain, or rather pressure, and the poem is nothing else than the erection +that precedes relief, the throes that bring forth out of pregnancy. Just +as the multitude in revolt bursts the bonds of its excitement and +launches of a sudden all the passion dammed back for centuries, so +springs from the poet like a geyser the passionate assault of words +bursting from too long silence. These cries are a physical relief. These +'élans captifs dans le muscle et la chair '[1] are the relief of a +convulsion, the easy breathing after oppression. As a passionate man is +forced to relieve himself by gestures, or in a fit of rage, or in cries, +or in weeping, or in some other state opposed to rest, the poet +discharges his feeling in rhythmic words: 'L'homme à vous prononcer +respirait plus à l'aise'[2] he has said of the man who was the first to +force the excess of his feeling into speech. + +_It is, then, a force positively physical which produces Verhaeren's +rhythm._ It is difficult to prove such an assertion, for the state of +creation is unconscious and unapproachable, although it may intuitively +be detected in those moments of recreation, in that second of a new +birth when a poet recites his work, when he feels, as it were, the +pressure of the feeling weighing upon him artificially in recollection, +when by the force of his imagination he relieves himself again as at the +birth of the poem. And any one who has once heard Verhaeren reciting +poetry will know how much with him the rhythm of body and poem is one +and indivisible, how the excitement that becomes rhythmical in the +vibrating word is at the same time converted into the identical gesture. +The calm eyes grow keen, they seem to pierce the near paper; the arm is +raised commandingly, and every finger of the hand is stretched out to +mark the cæsura as though with an electric shock; to hammer the verses; +and with the voice to eject the hurrying and almost screaming words into +the room. In his movements there is then that terrific effort of one who +would fain tear himself away from himself, that sublimest gesture of the +poet striving away from the earth, striving away from himself, from the +heavy gait of words to winged passion. Man coalesces with Nature in one +second of the most wonderful identity: + + Les os, le sang, les nerfs font alliance + Avec on ne sait quoi de frémissant + Dans l'air et dans le vent; + On s'éprouve léger et clair dans l'espace, + On est heureux à crier grâce, + Les faits, les principes, les lois, on comprend tout; + Le cÅ“ur tremble d'amour et l'esprit semble fou + De l'ivresse de ses idées.[3] + +Every time that Verhaeren reads his poetry, this re-birth of the first +creative state is renewed. _It is in the first place a deliverance from +pain, and in the second place it is pleasure_. Again and again the word +darts along like a beast let loose; in the wildest rhythm; in a rhythm +that begins slowly, cautiously; quickens; then grows wilder and wilder; +grows to an intoxicating monotony, an ever-increasing speed, a rattling +din that reminds one of an express whizzing along at full speed. Like a +locomotive--for in Verhaeren's case one has to think in images of this +kind, and not in outworn tropes as of Pegasus--the poem rushes on, +driven only by a measure which reminds one of the short explosions of an +automobile. And as a matter of fact the scansion of the locomotive, its +restless rattling, has often been the cause of the rhythmic velocity of +his verses. Verhaeren himself is fond of relating that he has often, and +with delight, written poems on railway journeys, and that the cadence of +his verse has then been fired by the regular rattle of the train. He +describes wonderfully the rapture of the speed poured into his blood by +the whizzing past of trains. The whistling of the wind in moaning trees, +the dashing of the foaming sea along the shore, the echo a thousand +times repeated of thunder in the mountains, all these strong sounds have +become rhythm in his poems; all noisy things, all violent, swift +emotions have made it brusque, angry, and excited: + + Oh! les rythmes fougueux de la nature entière + Et les sentir et les darder à travers soi! + Vivre les mouvements répandus dans les bois, + Le sol, les vents, la mer et les tonnerres; + Vouloir qu'en son cerveau tressaille l'univers; + Et pour en condenser les frissons clairs + En ardentes images, + Aimer, aimer, surtout la foudre et les éclairs + Dont les dévorateurs de l'espace et de l'air + Incendient leur passage![4] + +But this is the new thing in Verhaeren, that he has transformed into +rhythm not only the voice of Nature, but also the new noises, the +grumbling of the multitude, the raging of cities, the rumbling of +workshops. Often in his rhythm can be heard the beat of hammers; the +hard, edged, regular whizzing of wheels; the whirring of looms; the +hissing of locomotives; often the wild, restless tumult of streets; the +humming and rumbling of dense masses of the people. Poets before him +imitated in the harmony of their verse the monotony of sources and the +babbling of water over pebbles, or the soughing voice of the wind. But +he makes the voice of the new things speak; makes the rhythm of the +city, this rhythm of fever and of unrest, this nervous moving of the +crowd, this unquiet billowing of a new ocean, flow over into his new +poem. Hence this up and down in his verses; this suddenness and +unexpectedness; this incalculable element. _The new, the industrial +noises have here become the music of poetry_. Since he does not seek to +express his own individual sensation of life, but would himself only be +a voice for the multitude, the rhythm is more roaring and restless than +that of any individual being. Like the first poets, those of old time, +before whom there were no outworn and exhausted words; like the poets +whose feeling burst into flame at every word, every cry; who discovered +themselves 'en exaltant la souffrance, le mal, le plaisir, le bien'; +like them when they + + ... confrontaient à chaque instant + Leur âme étonnée et profonde + Avec le monde,[5] + +poets who would be modern must compare their own soul with that of their +time, must always regulate their rhythm according to the mutation of +their time. Their deepest yearning must be to find not only their own +personal expression, but over and above it the poetic and musical +representation of the highest identity between themselves and their +time. For poets are the inheritors of a great patrimony: + + ... En eux seuls survit, ample, intacte et profonde, + L'ardeur + Dont s'enivrait, devant la terre et sa splendeur, + L'homme naïf et clair aux premiers temps du monde; + C'est que le rythme universel traverse encor + Comme aux temps primitifs leur corps.[6] + +They must, in these days, only express themselves when they have first +adapted the rhythm of their own feeling to that of the universe, to the +rhythm of the cities they live in, to the rhythm of the multitude from +which they have grown, to the rhythm of temporal as of eternal things. +They must, like a vein in the heart of the world, reproduce every beat +of the great hammer, every excitement, quickening of pace and +obstruction of the feeling rolled round in the whole organism; they must +learn from life the rhythm which shall again achieve the great harmony +that was lost between the world and the work of art. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] 'Le Verbe' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[2] _Ibid._ (_Ibid._). + +[3] 'Les Heures où l'on crée' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[4] 'L'En-Avant' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[5] 'Le Verbe' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[6] _Ibid._ (_Ibid._). + + + + +THE NEW PATHOS + + Lassé des mots, lassé des livres. + . . . . . . . . . + Je cherche, en ma fierté, + L'acte qui sauve et qui délivre. + É.V., 'L'Action.' + +The primitive poem, that which came into being long before writing or +print, was nothing but a modulated cry that was hardly language, a cry +won from joy or pain, mourning or despair, recollection or passionate +entreaty, but always from fulness of feeling. It was pathetic, because +it was produced by passion; pathetic, because its intention was to +produce passion. The poem of those great and distant men who were the +first to find word and speech in the darted cry of feeling, was an +invocation of the crowd; an exhortation; a fiery incitement; an ecstasy; +a direct electric discharge of feeling to feeling. The poet spoke to the +others, an individual to a circle. The auditors stood before him in +expectation--somewhat as Max Klinger in his new picture has gathered +them together in front of blind Homer--they waited, watched, listened, +surrendered themselves, let themselves be carried away; or they +resisted. That poem and the delivery of it were not something finished +and presented for approval; no vessel or ornament already hammered into +shape and perfectly chiselled; they were something in the process of +creation, something newly growing at that moment, a struggle with the +hearer, a wrestling with him for his passion. + +Poets lost this close, glowing contact with the masses when writing was +invented. What the dissemination of the written word, and still more, in +after days, the infinite multiplication of printing, dowered them with; +all the new influence over spaces hitherto closed; the fact that their +words were henceforth alive in countries which they had never visited; +that men drew strength and inspiration and vital courage from their +words long after their own bodies had fallen into dust--this vast and +mighty effect had only been obtained by relinquishing that other and +perhaps not lesser effect--dialogue, that standing face to face with the +multitude. By slow degrees poets became something imaginary to the +public. When they spoke, they really only listened to themselves; more +and more their poem became a lonely colloquy with themselves; the +harangue became a monologue, more and more lyrical in a new sense and +less and less moving. More and more their poem travelled away from +speech; more and more it lost that mysterious, passionate fire that is +only fed by the moment, by standing face to face with an excited crowd, +by the magical influx of tension and stimulation out of the heart of +the hearer into the poet's own words. For, with his expectation, with +his eager eyes, his excitement, and his intractable impatience, every +listener does something for the speaker: he goads him; he forces +something of his expectant restlessness into the response that has not +yet been made. But the moment the poet no longer spoke to the crowd, no +longer to a circle, but fashioned his words for print and writing, a new +and peculiar sensation was developed in him. He accustomed himself to +speaking only for himself; to conceiving his own feeling as important, +irrespective of effect and force; to holding a conversation with none +but himself and silence. And his poem changed more and more. Now that +the poet no longer had the panting roar of the response, the cry of +passion, the exultation of enthusiasm, as the finale of his poetry--the +last accord, as it were, belonging to his own music--he sought to +complete the harmony in the verse by means of itself. He rounded his +poem with an artist's care, as though it were an earthenware vessel; +illumined it with colours like a picture; rilled it with music; more and +more he relinquished the idea of persuading, of convincing,.of +inspiring. He was content that the poem should have no feeling for other +men, and gave it only the life and the mood of his own world. In that +period of transition, we may suppose, 'poetic' diction first came into +being, that language by the side of the living language which petrified +more and more as time went on into a dialect hostile to the world, into +bloodless marble. Of old, the poetic language was not one that existed +side by side with the real language; it was only the last +intensification of the real language. By the rhythm of higher passion, +by the fire of harangue, it became a sacred fire, a blest intoxication, +a festivity in the work-a-day world. Thus, as intensified vitality, +language could be different without ever being unintelligible, could +remain with and yet above the people, while the lyric poetry of to-day +has become, for the most part, strange and worthless to active men who +live in the midst of realities, to the artisan and the toiler. + +Nevertheless in our own days there seem to be signs of a return to this +primitive close contact between the poet and his audience; a new pathos +is at its birth. The stage was the first bridge between the poet and the +multitude. But here the actor was still the intermediary of the spoken +word; the purely lyrical emotion was not an aim in itself, but only, for +three or four hours, a help in the illusion. However, the time of the +isolation of the poet from the crowd, which was formerly rendered +necessary by the great distances between nation and nation, seems now to +have been overcome by the shortening of space and by the +industrialisation of cities. To-day poets once again recite their verse +in lecture-halls, in the popular universities of America; nay, in +churches Walt Whitman's lines ring out into the American consciousness, +and what used to be created only by the seething seconds of political +crises--one might instance Petöfi declaiming his national anthem 'Talpra +Magyar' from the steps of the university to the revolutionary +crowd--occurs almost every day. Now again as of old the lyric poet seems +entitled to be, if not the intellectual leader of the time, at least he +who must excite and quell the passions of the time; the rhapsodist who +hails, kindles, and fans that holy fire, energy. The world seems to be +waiting for Him who shall concentrate all life in a flash of lightning +to light up all the deeps of darkness: + + Il monte--et l'on croirait que le monde l'attend, + Si large est la clameur des cÅ“urs battant + À l'unisson de ses paroles souveraines. + Il est effroi, danger, affre, fureur et haine; + Il est ordre, silence, amour et volonté; + Il scelle en lui toutes les violences lyriques.[1] + +Certainly the poem which would speak to the multitude must be different +to the kind of poem that pleased our fathers. Above all, it must itself +be a will, an aim, an energy, an evocation. All the technical +excellence, the sweet music, the craft of vibrating rhythms, suppleness +and flexibility of language, must, in the new poem, no longer be an aim +in themselves, but only a means to kindle enthusiasm. Such a poem must +no longer be a sentimental dialogue between a hermit and some other +hermit, a stranger somewhere far away; it must no longer be the short, +hurriedly trembling voice which is silenced ere the word's flame has +blazed up in it; no, this new poem must be strongly exulting, richly +inspired, with a far horizon for its goal, and rushing on with +irresistible impetuosity. It is not written for gentle moods, but for +loud, resonant words. He who would quell the crowd must have the rhythm +of their own new and restless life in him; he who speaks to the crowd +must be inspired by the new pathos. And this new pathos, this 'pathos +which most of all accepts the world as it is' (in Nietzsche's sense), +is, above all, zest, is the strength and the will to create ecstasy. +This poem must not be sensitive and woebegone; it must not express a +personal grief that seeks to enlist the sympathies of others; no, it +must be inspired by a fulness of joy, by the will to create from joy +itself passion that cannot be held down. Only great feelings bear the +message to the crowd; small feelings, which can only in silence, as in +motionless air, rise above the ground, are dashed down again. _The new +pathos must contain the will, not to set souls in vibration, not to +provide a delicate, æsthetic sense of pleasure, but to fire to a deed._ +It must carry the hearer along with it; it must once again collect in +itself the scattered forces of the poet of old time; it must in the poet +recreate, for an hour, the demagogue, the musician, the actor, the +orator; it must snatch the word again off the paper into the air; it +must carefully entrust feeling as a secret treasure to the individual; +it must hurl this treasure into the surf of a multitude. Poems with such +a new pathos cannot be created by feeble, passive men, whose mood can be +changed at any minute by the world around them, but only by fighting +natures, who are governed by an idea, by the thought of a duty; who seek +to force their feeling on others; who elevate their inspiration to the +inspiration of the whole world. + +This new lyric pathos is in our days growing lustily into life again. +For centuries rhetoricians have been mocked at. The change of estimation +in Schiller's case from worship to sufferance is a lasting proof. And +let us remember that Nietzsche, the only German who in recent years has +influenced the world, was only able to do so by creating a new +rhetorical style--'I am the inventor of the dithyramb'--only by making +his _Zarathustra_ a preacher's book which insistently requires a loud, +resonant voice. In France it was Victor Hugo who first recognised the +necessity of direct address. But he, who, as it happens, stands on that +narrowest boundary-line which separates genius from talent, he of whom +one can say that he was either the least of the eternal, monumental +poets or the greatest of the minor, the derivative poets, he confined +himself to France, he never thought of any but the French nation--as +Walt Whitman never thought of any but the American nation--and, above +all, he had not the high place whence to speak to his nation. He would +have been greater if he had really had the tribune whence his thunder +and lightning might have reached the multitude, instead of being always +only a sinister grumbling from the background of exile. Of all the +hundred volumes of his work perhaps nothing will remain except that +commanding gesture of an orator which Rodin has perpetuated in his +statue, and which is nothing else than the will to move to passion. He +has created this will to pathos, but not the pathos itself; still, even +the effort is a great and memorable achievement. + +Victor Hugo's inheritance, which was ill administered by chatterers and +chauvinists, by Déroulède and such poets with their big drums and their +trumpet-flourishes, has been taken over in France by Verhaeren. And he +is the first whose voice again reaches the crowd, the first French +realisation of a pathos which has absolutely the effect of art and +poetry. He more than any other, he whose deepest delight it is to quell +a grandiose resistance, he the _évocateur prodigieux_, as Bersaucourt[2] +has called him, was entitled to the mastery of the living word. Whenever +I read a poem by Verhaeren, I am time after time astonished to find +myself, when I have begun by reading it to myself, suddenly forced to +read the words aloud; surprised to find myself reading them louder and +louder; surprised to find in my hand, in my whole body, the urgent need +awakening of the gesture that hails and kindles an audience. For so +strong is the passionateness of the original feeling, the inner cry and +appeal in the words, that it forces its way through the reproduction, +rings out loudly even from the dead letters. _All the great poems of +Verhaeren are filled with the yearning to be spoken aloud, vehemently, +in the zest and glow of passion_. If they are recited softly, they seem +to be quite without melody; if they are read calmly and stolidly, they +often seem hard, uneven, and abrupt. Many images recur with a certain +regularity, many adjectives are repeated as petrified ideas--the trick +of an orator who emphasises what is important by standing +expressions--but the moment the poem is read aloud it is all alive +again, the repetitions are suddenly revealed as superb instances of +excitement reaching its mark, the recurring images take their place as +regular milestones along a road rushing along wildly to the infinite. +Verhaeren's poetry is the communication of an ecstasy, communication not +in the sense of a secret to an individual, but of fire cast to kindle a +crowd. His poems never seem to be quite completed, but to have been +first created while being read, just as every good and fiery speech +gives the impression of being improvised; they are always the unfolding +of a state, a passionate analysis that acts like a discovery. They are +moving, not harmonious. Just as an orator does not shock his audience at +the very first with the conclusion of his reasoning, but pays out the +chain of his arguments slowly and logically, Verhaeren builds his poems +from visions, first in repose, then in the excitement that intensifies, +and then with burning horizons foaming over more and more wildly in +images. And these images again are rhetorical; they are not similes +which can only be understood in their totality by the roundabout way of +reflection; they are glaring flashes of lightning. A poem that would +move those who hear it has need of metaphors which not only hit the mark +of feeling, but which hit it immediately with deadly effect. They must +be glaring, because they have to force the whole feeling in the +expression of one second as quick as lightning. In this way the pathetic +poem produces a new form of sensuous expression, and in this way too it +creates itself a new rhythm of intensification. First of all, with the +lightnings of his metaphors Verhaeren illuminates the vast landscape of +visions; then, by a certain monotony of rhythm, he intensifies the +astonishment and excitement to the highest ecstasy. Repeatedly, at the +breathing-spaces of his great poems, you think you have reached the +summit, only to be whipped to a higher leap, to a higher outlook. 'Il +faut en tes élans te dépasser sans cesse';[3] this, his moral +commandment, is for him the highest poetical law as well. The deepest +will of his pathetic poem is to whip up, to set running, to snatch his +hearer along with him. 'Dites!' this summons which is like a gesture, +the urgent 'encore, encore!' are appeals which in his poems are +petrified into cries, just as every horseman has certain words to lure +the last strength from his horse. _Such words are nothing but transposed +oratorical gestures_. The hollow 'oh!' is the gesture of appeal; the +short 'qu'importe!' the gesture as of one who casts away a burden grown +too heavy; the slow, curving, far-sweeping 'immensément' is the heaping +up of all infinity. These poems are lashed into fever heat. For not only +do they themselves seek to fly like those other, the harmonious, the +really lyric poems, which with wings outspread seem to hover near the +clouds, they also seek to snatch up by force the whole heavy mass of the +audience. This is the explanation of the constant repetitions in the +poems, which are often very long, as though some last doubter were yet +to be convinced, as though fire were to be darted into the blood of some +last one yet immune. Everything strives forwards, forwards, dragging the +resister along with ecstatic power. + +And here are seen the dangers of pathos. The first danger, that into +which, for instance, Victor Hugo fell, was the emptiness, the hollowness +of the feeling, the covering over of a void by a mighty gesture; +enthusiasm resulting from a deliberate method, and not forced by inner +feeling. Empty phrasing is and remains the first danger of the pathetic +poem. The triteness of words 'plus sonores que solides'[4] is the +second. Here, however, in this new pathos, there is another and a new +peril, that of the over-heating of feeling, that of excessive, unhealthy +exaltation, which must then of necessity yield to exhaustion. No man can +be in a constant fever of excitement, in an unremitting state of +exaltation. And in these poems there is the will to unceasing ecstasy. +By the pathos, too, the purely lyrical values of the poem often fall +into danger. The will to be clear often forces the poet to a triteness +of wording; the terseness necessitates frequent repetition; the impulse +to build up an organic ecstasy often leads to excessive length. Owing to +its glaring, clear colours the language loses that mystical element of +lyric verse--the incommensurable, as Goethe called it--that magic hint +of a secret thing fleeing from the crowd and the light of day. But at +the same time this pathos signifies an immense enrichment of lyric +resources, a transvaluation of the word, by the very fact that it is not +exclusively intended for print but for declamation as well. The pathetic +poem is not, like the lyric poem, a crystallised impression; it is not +at the same time question and answer to itself; it is the expectation of +an answer. The great pathos, therefore, grows with success, and +involuntarily mingles in the poem the craving and the answer of the +poet's time. The voice of the poet is always as strong as the call that +goes out to him. Verhaeren found this new pathos in the course of his +development, because he no longer felt the voice of the crowd, of +cities, and of all the new things as a hindrance to his lyric poetry, +but as a challenge, as a rhetorical exhortation. And the more the world +around us becomes ponderous, grandiose, and passionate--the more it +becomes heroic in the concentration of its strength (heroic in that new +strength that Emerson preached)--so much the more, too, must lyric +poetry in the new sense, perhaps in Verhaeren's sense, be pathetic. +Gigantic impressions cannot be forced into petty impressions; vast +conceptions cannot be split up into mean fragments; a loud appeal needs +a loud answer. All art is more dependent than we are aware on its epoch. +The same secret dependence between demand and production seems to exist +in the sphere of art as exists in commerce. Laws that escape our +knowledge and cannot be prisoned in formulae can sometimes be glimpsed, +hazy as a presentiment, in fugitive intuition. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] 'Le Tribun' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[2] Albert de Bersaucourt, _Conférence sur Emile Verhaeren._ + +[3] 'L'Impossible' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[4] Albert Mockel, _Émile Verhaeren._ + + + + +VERHAEREN'S POETIC METHOD + + Je suis celle des surprises fécondes. + É.V., 'Celle des Voyages.' + + +A real poem must not exhibit an artificial structure of parts, a +mechanism; it must, like man himself, be organic, an indissoluble union +of soul and body. It must have a living body of flesh, the substance of +the word, the colour of the metaphors, the mechanism of the motion, the +skeleton of the thought; but over and above all that it must possess +that inexpressible something, the soul, which alone makes it organic; +the breath, the rhythm, that inseparable essence which is no longer +perceptible to intelligence, but only to feeling. It is not first in +this transcendental element, however, that the poet's personality is +revealed: the poetry of a great poet must be characteristic in its very +physis, in its very material. Side by side with that magic vibration, +that intangible element of feeling, the materiality too, the weaving of +the word, that net of expression in which the fugitive feeling is caught +in the waters of the hidden life and lifted into the light, these too +must be alone of their kind if they are to characterise the poet's race, +environment, and personality. This purely material organism of the poet +too is, like every living thing, subject to growth, to the change of +maturity and age. The structure of the poem, like every human face, must +gradually, in the revolution of the years, work its way to character +from the shifting features of childhood and the indistinctness of the +general type, must in its sensuous externals, in the physiognomy of the +material, show all psychic changes to the last acquisition of +personality. In a real poet the technical aspect, the handicraft, the +external element has a development that runs parallel to the +intellectual and poetic contents. In form, too, the poem must at first +represent a tradition, something that has been taken over; only in the +revolt of youth will it achieve a personal form, and this itself will +later, as it gradually grows cold and petrifies, represent an immutable +type. + +Verhaeren's poetry has its evolution and its history in this purely +formal sense. Even this poetry of Verhaeren's, which to-day looms so +immensely isolated and so victoriously characteristic in French +literature that a connoisseur can, without a shadow of doubt, recognise +the creator from a single stanza, has grown from a tradition, is the +climax of a certain culture, and is at the same time related to a +contemporary movement. When Verhaeren began to write, Victor Hugo, the +crowned king of French lyric poetry, was dead; Baudelaire was forgotten; +Paul Verlaine was still almost unknown. Victor Hugo's heirs, who +divided his kingdom as once the diadochi divided the kingdom of +Alexander the Great, were only able to preserve the trappings of the +glory gone, and the grandiloquence of their words contrasted ill with +their thin voices and artificial feelings. Against this circle, against +François Coppée, Catulle Mendès, Théodore de Banville and the rest of +them, rose up a new school of young men who called themselves 'decadents +and symbolists.' Here I must frankly admit that I am really unable to +explain this idea, perhaps for the very reason that I have read so many +varying definitions of it. The only thing that is certain is, that at +that time a group of young writers rose up in concert against a +tradition, and, in the most diverse experiments, sought a new lyrical +expression. What this new thing consisted in would be hard to say. The +truth is perhaps that all these poets were not French; that each of them +brought some new element from his own country, his own race, his own +past; that none of them felt that respect for the French tradition which +was in the blood of the native poets as an inward barrier, and thus were +able unconsciously to get nearer to their own artistic instinct. One +only needs to look at the names, which often at the first glance betray +the foreigner, the Americans Vielé-Griffin and Stuart Merrill, the +Belgians Verhaeren, Maeterlinck, and Mockel, or which, as in the case of +Jean Moréas, cover a complicated Greek name with a French pseudonym. +The only indisputable exploit of this group really was that about 1885 +they quickened the pace of French lyric poetry with a new unrest. +Mallarmé plunged his verses into a secret darkness of symbols, until the +words with their subterranean meaning almost became unintelligible, +while Verlaine gave his lines the dream-rapt lightsomeness of a music +never heard before. Gustave Kalm and Jules Laforgue were the first who +did away, the one with rhyme and the other with the Alexandrine, and +introduced the apparent irregularities of the _vers libre._ Each one did +his best on his own account to find something new, and all of them had +in common the same fiery eagerness to attack the idols of a derivative +poetry, the same ardent longing for a new form of expression. True, +their talent was soon choked up with sand, but that was because they +over-estimated the technical side of the innovations they introduced and +spent themselves in the investigation of theories, instead of developing +their own personalities. As time went on their paths diverged widely. +Many of them foundered in the sea of journalism; others are still, after +a lapse of twenty years, walking round in a circle in the footsteps of +their youth; and of the symbolists and decadents nothing is left but a +page or so of literary history, a faded sign-board marking an empty +shop. Verhaeren too was classed with them, although in my view he was +never essentially influenced by this school. A man of such sturdy +originality could not be more than stimulated by others, could not be +more than confirmed in his natural tendency to revolt. His attitude with +regard to the _vers libre_ was by no means due to this influence. For it +was not by suggestion from others, not by the instinct of imitation, but +by inward necessity, that he discovered his new form. It was not the +example of others that freed him from the fetters of tradition; he was +forced to free himself from them of his own accord. This inner +compulsion is alone of importance; for it is a matter of complete +indifference whether a poet writes by chance in regular verse or in +_vers libres_; the phenomenon can only be significant when a poet is of +necessity and by inner pressure forced to free himself from tradition +and to achieve a personal form. + +It was as a Parnassian that Verhaeren began. His first poetical +attempts, which he has never published, the verses he wrote at school +and in his first years at the university, showed him hypnotised by the +style of Lamartine and Victor Hugo. And even in the first two books he +published, in _Les Flamandes_ and _Les Moines_, there is not a single +poem in which Verhaeren has gone beyond his models. His poem is indeed +somewhat more mobile than the strict pattern of school exercises; it +already shows slight traces of the cracks which at a later day will +break the vessel to pieces. But this hint of insubordination was at +that time necessitated more by the harshness and rebelliousness of the +subject itself, by some stiffness or other in the turn of the phrase, +which can only be explained by the fact of the poet's alien race. Even a +foreigner can recognise that the verse is not rounded off, that the +rhythm is not balanced with the natural inevitable sense of form that a +man of Latin race would have, but that here a forceful will is with +difficulty constraining a barbaric temperament to harmony. Through his +French one can hear the massive language of his race, something of the +unwieldy strength we have in our old German ballads. And what his name +at the first glance betrayed--the foreigner--was to the finer ear of a +native easily perceptible from his French alone. + +The farther Verhaeren proceeded in his development--the nearer he got to +his real nature--the more the inheritance of his race in him revolted +against the shackles of tradition--so much the more intensive became the +impression of the Teutonic element in his verse. After all, development +is in most cases nothing more than the awakening in us of our buried +past. The highest demand of the Parnassian school, _impassibilité,_ an +immovableness as of bronze, is the antithesis of his stormy temperament, +which drives him along to a wild rhythm, not to harmony. Deep, guttural +notes vibrate in his verses, and make the song of his vowels rough; the +angularity, the masculinity, abruptness, and hardness of his peasant's +nature peer through everywhere. In addition to this, there is now the +inner transformation. So long as Verhaeren's poetic tendency was merely +pictorial, one that calmly and without excitement aimed at painting the +passion of the Flemish people, the earnestness of monasteries, just so +long did the Alexandrine best serve to divide the rhythmic waves of his +inspiration and roll them along. But when his personal sympathy began to +confuse the inner indifference of his first work, his verse became +uneasy. The cracks in the Alexandrine became more and more perceptible; +greater and greater in the poet grew his impatience of it and his desire +to smash it. He is no longer satisfied with the _vers ternaire_, the +verse of the Romanticists with its two cæsuras dividing the line into +three parts of perfectly equal rhythm and weight; he takes the free +Alexandrine introduced by Victor Hugo and develops it still further, +makes it still more irregular. He gives the syllables a different +quantity, a different sonority; they no longer rest, they rock to and +fro. And gradually the earnest, immovable uniformity of accentuation is +changed into a more billowing, rhythmic fluidity. But ere long this +concession too becomes too trivial for him. A temperament so impetuous +as his will endure no outward fetter whatever. For it is not repose that +this fiery singer would describe, but his own excited state--the +quivering and vibrating of his emotion, his febrile unrest. His great +manifold feeling, which is nothing else than a modulated cry, cannot +storm itself out in regular verse; it needs unquiet gestures, motion, +freedom, the _vers libre_. The fact that at this time other poets in +France were using the free verse, the fact that it was at that +time--several dispute the priority--'invented' for poets, is of no +consequence to us here. Such contemporaneous incidences never express a +chance, but always a latent necessity. Free verse was nothing else than +the inevitable reflex action of modern feeling, the poetic breaking free +of the unrest which lay in the time. Whether or not Verhaeren at that +time had models is of no importance. What has been taken over can never +become organic, only what comes from personal experience is a real gain. +And at that time it lay quite in the line of his development that by +inner necessity he was forced to break his old instrument and create +himself a new one. For the nervous unrest, the passionate agitation of +Verhaeren's later poems is unthinkable in regular verse. If verse is to +describe in its own inner passion the immense multiplicity of modern +impressions--their haste, their fire, their precipitous revulsion, their +unexpectedness, their gloomy melancholy, and the overwhelming vastness +of their dimensions--it must be strong and yet flexible, like a rapier. +Such poems must be emancipated from rules: they must stride along like a +real crowd, noisily seething; they must not walk in step, like soldiers +on the march. And if they are to be spoken, they must not be recited in +the stiff, cold, pathetically vibrating, self-conscious declamation of +the Comédie Française; they must be spoken as though to a crowd; they +must cry out, they must hail; and this-whipping up of an audience cannot +be harmonious. These poems must be spontaneous and impulsive. + +Manifold is the diversity which Verhaeren's poetry has achieved by its +deliverance from the monotony of the Alexandrine. Now and now only can +the verse reproduce the plastic side of an impression and the inward +agitation of it; not only by a pictorial description, but in a purely +external manner too; by the sound, by the music of the rhythm. The +lines, sometimes darting far beyond the margin, sometimes, like an +arrow, sharpened to a single word, have the whole key-board of feeling. +They can pace with a grave step like long black funeral processions, if +haply they would express the monotony of solitude, 'Mes jours toujours +plus lourds s'en vont roulant leur cours';[1] they can dart up like a +falcon, white and glittering, soaring to the exulting cry 'la joie,' +swift and as high as heaven over all the sad heaviness of earth. All the +voices of day and night can now be represented onomato-poetically: all +that is brusque and sudden by brevity; all that is ponderous and +grandiose by a vast sweep of fulness; an unexpected thing by sudden +harshness; haste in a feverishly accelerated movement; savagery by a +precipitous change of velocity. Every line can now express the feeling +by its rhythm alone. And one might without knowing French recognise the +poetical intention of many of these poems merely by listening to their +consonantal music, nay, often by looking at their typographical +arrangement. + +For this reason I should be tempted to call these poems with their vast +range _symphonic_ poems. They seem to have been conceived for an +orchestra. They are not, like the poetry of a past generation, chamber +music; they are not solitary violin _soli_; they are an inspired +blending of all instruments; they are graded in individual sections +which have a different _tempo_ and the pauses of the transitions. In +Verhaeren's poetry the lyric exceeds the bounds of its domain and +impinges on the dramatic and the epic. For his poem seeks not only to +describe a mood, like a purely lyrical poem, it describes at the same +time the birth of this mood. And this first part of the construction is +epic; it is descriptive; it leads up from a lowly beginning to a great +discharge of force. And, in the second place, the transitions are +dramatic, those bursts of temperament from section to section, those +precipitous falls and steep ascents which only at the end lead to a +harmonious solution. From a purely external point of view Verhaeren's +poem is more extensive, longer, of a greater range than any other +contemporary poetry; it shoots out farther beyond the limit of lyric +poetry; and, careless of the boundary-line of æsthetics, it derives +strength and nourishment from neighbouring domains. It comes nearer to +rhetoric, nearer to epic poetry, nearer to the drama, nearer to +philosophy than any other poetry of our day; it is more independent of +set rules than poetry had been hitherto. And independent of rules--or +obeying only a new inner rule--is Verhaeren's form. Now, since the page +no longer holds the fettered lines together in equal columns, the poet +can write out his wild, overflowing feelings in their own wild, boldly +curving lines. Verhaeren's poem at this time--and that which is achieved +in the years of maturity remains inalienable--has its own inner +architectonics. But it can hardly be compared to a piece of +architecture, a structure built with hands; it is rather like a +manifestation of nature. It is elementary like every feeling; it +discharges itself like a storm. First a vision moves up like a cloud; +more and more densely it compresses itself; more and more sultrily, more +and more oppressively it weighs on the feeling; higher and higher, +hotter and hotter grows the inner tension, until at last in the +lightning of the images, in the rolling of the rhythm, all the garnered +strength discharges itself rhythmically. The andante always grows to a +furioso; and only the last section shows again the clear, cleansed sky +of calm, in an intellectual synthesis of the state of chaos. This +structure of Verhaeren's poem is almost invariable. It may be seen, for +instance, in two parallel examples: in the poems 'La Foule' and 'Vers la +Mer' in the book _Les Visages de la Vie_. Both set in with an +adjuration, a vision. Here the crowd, its confusion, its strength; there +a sensitive picture of the morning sea whose transparent tones remind +one of Turner. Now the poet fires this still vision with his own +passionateness. You see the crowd moving more and more restlessly, the +waves surging more and more passionately; and ecstasy breaks out the +moment the poet surrenders himself to these things, places himself among +the crowd, sinks his feeling, his body in the sea. Then in the finale +bursts forth the great cry of identity, in the one case the yearning to +be all the crowd, in both that ecstatic gesture of the individual +yearning for infinity. The first picture, which was only sensuously +seen, grows at the end of the poem into a great ethic inspiration; from +the vision is unfolded an unconquerable moral and metaphysical need. +This form of intensification from individual feeling to universal +feeling is the basic form of Verhaeren's poem. It might be best, in +order to convey a clear idea of its form, to use a geometrical term and +say that these poems are, to a certain extent, _poems in the form of a +parabola._ While the lyric in the current sense mostly represents a +symmetrical and harmonious form, a return to itself, a circle, +Verhaeren's poem has the form of a parabola, apparently irregular but +really equally governed by a law. His poems soar in a swift sustained +flight, soar from the earth up into the clouds, from the real to the +unreal, and then from a sudden zenith fling themselves back to the +earth. The inspiration drives the feeling away from the pictorial, from +passionless contemplation to this utmost height of possibility, far away +from all sensuous perceptions high into the metaphysical, in order then, +suddenly and unexpectedly, to bring it back to the _terra firma_ of +reality. And indeed, in the music of these poems there is something as +of a darting upwards, something of the hissing and whizzing of a stone +well thrown and of its sudden falling down. In their rhythm too is this +increasing velocity, this catching of the breath and this return to the +starting-point, this bethinking itself of gravity when it returns to the +earth. + +Something may now be said as to the means with which Verhaeren attains +his vision, with which he seeks to represent the inner passionateness of +things, with which he evokes enthusiasm. Let us first of all try to +establish whether Verhaeren is what is called a master of language. +Verhaeren's command of language is not by any means unlimited. Both in +his words and in his rhymes there is constant repetition which sometimes +borders on monotony; but on the other hand there is a strangeness, a +newness, an unexpectedness of wording which is almost unexampled in +French lyric poetry. An enrichment of the language, however, does not +proceed from neologisms alone; a word may become alive by the +unexpectedness of a new application, by a transposition of the meaning, +as Rainer Maria Rilke, for instance, has often done in the German lyric. +To redeem 'die armen Worte, die im Alltag darben,'[2] and consecrate +them anew to poetry, is perhaps a higher merit than creating new words. +Now Verhaeren has above all, by the Flemish sense of language which he +inherited, imported a certain Belgian timbre into French lyric poetry. +Personally, it is true, he is almost ignorant of Flemish; nevertheless, +by the vague music familiar to him from his childhood's days, by a +certain guttural tone, he has imported a nuance which is perhaps less? +perceptible to the foreigner than to a Frenchman. At this point I should +like to call Maurice Gauchez as a witness and borrow the most salient +examples from his extraordinarily interesting monograph. Among the +neologisms for which Gauchez suggests a foreign origin he quotes the +following: les baisers rouges, les plumes majuscules, les malades +hiératiques, la statue textuelle, les automnes prismatiques, le soir +tourbillonaire, les solitudes océans, le ciel dédalien, le cÅ“ur +myriadaire de la foule, les automnes apostumes, les vents vermeils, les +navires cavalcadeurs, les gloires médusaires. And he rightly points out +how much certain of Verhaeren's verbs might enrich the French language: +enturquoiser, rauquer, vacarmer, béquiller, s'enténébrer, se futiliser, +se mesquiniser, larmer. But I for my part cannot look upon the +enrichment here accruing from racial instinct as the essential thing in +his verbal art: it only gives it a local colour, without really +explaining what is astonishingly modern in his diction. Verhaeren has +been a great creator of new things for the French lyric, above all by +his extension of its range of subjects, by his renewal of poetic +reality, by recruiting new forces for poetry in the domain of technical +science. _The great part of the new blood for his language came not so +much from Flemish as from science_. A man who writes poems on the +Exchange, on the theatre, on science, who sings factories and railway +stations, cannot ignore their terminology. He must borrow certain +technical expressions from the vocabulary of science, certain +pathological terms from medicine; he must extend the glossary of the +poetic by the extension of the poetic itself. There are geographical +surprises of rhyme to be found in Verhaeren: Berlin and Sakhalin, +Moscow, the Balearic and other distant islands whose names have never +previously lived in rhyme. And since science is by its own progress +compelled to invent new names every day, since new machines demand new +words for their necessities, here for the first time an inexhaustible +source has been discovered for replenishing the French language. + +This immense wealth, on the other hand, is jeopardised by something that +might be called not so much poverty or restriction as fascination. Every +one-sidedness of feeling produces, with its advantages, certain defects, +and thus the constant passionateness which brought Verhaeren's poetry +near to oratory, to preaching, is at the same time responsible for a +certain monotony of the metaphors. Verhaeren is hallucinated by certain +words, images, adjectives, phrases. He repeats them incessantly through +all his work. All things in which a many-headed passion is united he +compares with a 'brasier'; 'carrefour' is his symbol for indecision; +'l'essor' is for him the last straining of effort; many cries and words +by which he hails his audience are repeated almost from page to page. +The adjectives too are often monotonous; often indeed, with the cold +'iques' at the end of them, they are schematic; and even in the +metaphors that phenomenon is unmistakable which in science is called +pseudoanæsthesia, that is, the memory of a fixed feeling from the domain +of some other sense is always individually associated with a certain +colour or sound. For him 'red' expresses all that is passionate; 'gold' +all greatness and pomp; 'white' all that is gentle; 'black' all enmity. +His images have thus something abrupt and absolute; there is always in +them, as Albert Mockel has demonstrated in his masterly study, the +decisive, the sudden excitement, which overwhelms our astonishment. His +images are as violent as his colours, as his rhythm. They have the +suddenness of a cannon-ball which darts through space and is only +perceptible to our vision when it reaches its aim and smashes the +target. Possibly the inmost reason of this lies in the fact that these +poems are intended to be spoken. A placard that is to have effect at +some distance must be in glaring colours; pathos calls for images that +hallucinate. Such images have indeed been found by Verhaeren, and by +Verhaeren only. He hardly seems to know nuances. With the brutal +instinct of a strong man he loves all that is glaring, all that is +untrammelled. 'La couleur, elle est dans ses Å“uvres une surprise de +métaux et d'images.'[3] But in this material they blaze, and with their +lightnings they light up even the most distant horizon. I will only +remind the reader of his 'beffrois immensément vêtus de nuit' or 'la +façade paraît pleurer des lettres d'or,' or his 'les gestes de lumière +des phares.' By the intensity of such images Verhaeren attains to quite +an incomparable clearness of the feeling. 'Personne, je crois, ne +possède à l'égal de Verhaeren le don des lumières et des ombres, non +point fondues, mais enchevêtrées, des noirs absolus coupés de blanches +clartés.'[4] + +One-sidedness of temperament here produces a one-sided advantage with +all its artistic restrictions. So that Verhaeren is not a verbal artist +in the unrestricted sense of one who always hits upon the only, the +inevitable comparison for a thing; of one who flashes a bold word on the +attention once and never retails it till it palls, who seems to use +every word for the first time. His poetic vocabulary is rich, but by no +means infinite; his sensibility is strong, but it has its restrictions. +For, as is the case with every passionate poet, certain feelings at the +last white-heat of excitement appear to him identical, seem to him to be +capable of comparison only with the quite elementary things of Nature, +with fire, the sea, the wind, thunder and lightning. To make the point +clear, Verhaeren is not a verbal artist in Goethe's sense, but rather in +Schiller's sense. With the latter, too, he has the gift in common of +definitely expressing certain perceptions in one lyric line. He has +discovered essences of the lyric feeling of life, lines that are now +household words, or which at all events will be so. It will be +sufficient to mention word formations such as 'les villes +tentaculaires,' which in France have already become common-places, or +such maxims as 'La vie est à monter et non à descendre,' or 'Toute la +vie est dans l'essor.' In lines like these the lyric ecstasy is +compressed as in a coin, and perpetuated in the current riches of the +language. + +This hardness and brutality, these abrupt transitions, constitute the +individuality of Verhaeren's poetry. At bottom it is nothing else than +an accentuated masculinity. The voice, the music, is guttural, deep, +raucous, masculine; the body of his poem has, like a man's body, the +beautiful movement of strength, but in repose gestures that are often +hard and which only in passion regain their compelling beauty. Whereas +French lyric poetry, so to speak, had imitated the female body, the +delicate grace of its soft yielding lines; whereas its first concern was +harmony; Verhaeren's poem strove only for the rhythm of movement, only +for the proud and vigorously ringing stride of a man, his leaping and +running, the fighting display of his strength. This is not the only +reason why the French have so long repudiated him. For where we delight +in an echo from the German in his language, they feel the harshness of +the Teutonic undertone; where we find a consonance with the German +ballad, a re-birth of the German ballad as though it were awakening from +the dreams of childhood, they see an opposition to the native tradition. +And in fact, the farther Verhaeren has proceeded in his development, +both in his personality and in his verse, the more the French varnish +has peeled off his Teutonic perception. It was only in the time of his +first dependence on tradition that his poetry was hardly to be +distinguished from that of other writers in French. The farther he +receded from the French standpoint, the more he unconsciously approached +German art. To-day, perhaps, a return to classicism is perceptible in +his poetry. The neologisms are not so audacious; the images are more +schematic; the whole poem is calmer and more clarified. This, however, +is by no means a cowardly compromise with a shattered tradition, no +repentant return to the fold; it is the same phenomenon we meet in a +similar manner in the late poems of Goethe, Schiller, Hugo, and +Swinburne; the effect of the cooling of the blood in age; the yielding +of sensuous perception to intellectual ideas. The victor has lost the +fighter's brutality; the man in his maturity no longer needs revolt but +a conception of the world--harmony. Here, as in Verhaeren's whole +evolution, his verse is the most delicately sensitive indicator of the +psychic revulsion, the perfect proof of a poetic and organic development +which is really inward and dependent only on the laws of his blood. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] 'L'Heure Mauvaise' (_Au Bord de la Route_). + +[2] 'Poor words a-hungered in the working day.'--Rainer Maria Rilke, +_Mir sur Feier._ + +[3] Albert Mockel, _Émile Verhaeren_. + +[4] _Ibid._ (_Ibid._). + + + + +VERHAEREN'S DRAMA + + Toute la vie est dans l'essor. + É.V., _Les Forces Tumultueuses._ + +Émile Verhaeren's dramas seem to stand outside his work. Verhaeren is +essentially a lyric poet. His whole feeling springs from lyric +enthusiasm, and all neighbouring domains are merely sources whose +strength flows into and feeds this one vital instinct. Verhaeren has +almost always used the dramatic and the epic only as a means, never as +an end in themselves: from the epic he has taken over into the vast +sweep of his dithyrambic poems its broad, calm development, and from the +drama the swift, abrupt contrast of transitions. The dramatic and the +epic only serve him as a tonic, as a means to strengthen the blood of +his lyric art. Although Verhaeren beside his lyric work has written +dramas--four up to the present--these, in the edifice of his complete +production, must be appreciated from a different point of view: from an +architectural point of view. For the dramas are to him, in a certain +sense, only a survey, a concentration of individual lyric crises, a +synopsis of certain ideal complexes which have occupied some moment of +his past; they are final settlements; the last point in lines of +development; milestones of individual epochs. All that in the lyric +poems, which never systematically bounded a domain, fell apart, is here +made to converge to the focus of a programme. The lyric juxtaposition is +fused into an inner relationship, the circle of ideas is co-ordinated +like a picture in the frame of a play. Verhaeren's four tragedies +represent four spheres of a conception of the universe: the religious, +the social, the national, and the ethical. _Le Cloître_ is a re-creation +of the book of verse _Les Moines_, is the tragedy of Catholicism; _Les +Aubes_ is a condensation of the sociological trilogy _Les Villes +Tentaculaires, Les Campagnes Hallucinées, Les Villages Illusoires. +Philip II._ shapes the tragedy of the Antichrist, the contrast of Spain +and Belgium, of sensuality and asceticism. And _Hélène de Sparte_, which +in its outward form manifests a return to classicism, handles purely +moral, eternal problems. As far as their contents are concerned, +Verhaeren's dramas show no deviation, no change of the inner centre of +gravity, and his new dramatic style is in perfect harmony with his new +lyric style. For just as on the one hand he has used the dramatic +element as a substance of his lyric work, here in his dramas he has +transmuted the lyric element to a dramatic element. Here, too, we have +nothing but visions intensified into exaltation. Here, as everywhere +else, Verhaeren can only create by enthusiasm. What goads him on is the +lyric moment in his enthusiasm, that second of the highest tension when +passion, if it is not to shatter the frame of its generator, must have +explosive words. The characters of his dramas are never anything but +symbols of great passions, the bridge for this ascension of the +exaltation. To him the action is no more than the way to the crises, to +those seconds when some mighty force seizes on these characters and +forces them to cry out. Whole scenes seem to be only awaiting for the +moment when some one shall rise and turn to the crowd, wrestle with it +and overthrow it, or be himself dashed to pieces. + +The style of Verhaeren's dramas is purely lyrical; the pace is +throughout passionate and feverish; and this method, which runs counter +to all dramatic canons, was bound organically to create a new technique. +The French drama had hitherto known only the rhymed Alexandrine or +prose. In Verhaeren's dramas--for the first time to my knowledge--prose +and verse (verse which is 'free' both as regards rhythm and rhyme) are +throughout promiscuously mixed. Mixed, but not as in Shakespeare, in +whose plays verse and prose alternate in individual scenes and +establish, so to speak, a social stratification, serving-men speaking in +prose and their masters in verse: in Verhaeren the prose passages are +the broad, resting foundations of the action; the curved bowls, so to +speak, from which the holy fire of the exaltation flames. His +characters express their calm in prose, pass from calm to excitement, +and in this intensification speak a language which imperceptibly merges +into a poem. Not till their passion breaks out do they speak in verse, +in those seconds, as it were, when their soul begins to vibrate; and in +these passages one cannot help thinking of an aeroplane which is first +driven along the ground and moves with ever greater speed till suddenly +it soars aloft. In Verhaeren's drama the characters speak an ever purer +language the more poetical they become; music breaks with their passion +from their souls; just as many people who behave coarsely and awkwardly +in ordinary life, in great moments suddenly achieve a bearing of heroic +beauty. This embodies the idea that in enthusiasm a man discovers in +himself another and a purer language; that passion and the yearning to +free oneself from an immeasurable and intolerable earthly burden make a +poet of any man. This idea is in harmony with Verhaeren's whole +conception of the universe, his idea that the man swept away by passion +and enthusiasm is on a higher plane than the critic with his lack of hot +feeling; that receptivity for great sensations constitutes, so to speak, +a scale of moral values. And the stage performances have shown that this +new style is justified, that the transition from prose to verse, +occurring as it does contemporaneously with the ascension from calm to +passion, passes practically unnoticed by the audience, which is +equivalent to saying that when put to the test the method was recognised +as necessary. + +And it is by passion, this innermost flame of Verhaeren's poetry, that +his dramas live too. Their qualities are those of the lyrics; they have, +above all, that vast power of vision which sets _Philip II_. against the +tragic landscape of Spain; over the drama of Helen arches the heaven of +Greece, blue, and mild, and open like a flower; and behind the tragedy +of modern cities unrolls the inflamed scenery of the sky with the black +arms of chimneys. And then the immense fervour of the ecstasy which, not +in a slow, regular progression, but in savage, convulsive thrusts, +whirls the action onward to the moments of the solution. + +Thus Verhaeren's first drama derives its strength from the lyric source +of a man's accusation of himself. _Le Cloître_ is a paraphrase of _Les +Moines_, the book of the monks. Here again all the characters are +gathered together in the cool corridors of a monastery--the gentle, the +wild, the feudal, the wrathful, the childlike, the learned monk; here, +however, they do not act in isolation, but with all their strength the +one against the other. They fight for the prior's chair, which is really +the symbol of something higher. For just as in _Les Moines_ every +individual monk expressed symbolically some virtue of Catholicism and a +distinct idea of God, here the prior's chair decides the question who is +the most deserving of God. For his successor the old prior has +designated Balthasar, a nobleman whom the monastery has sheltered for +years. But he had only taken refuge there because he had killed his own +father, thus escaping secular justice, and now he feels the +consciousness of his guilt burning, feels the exasperated struggle +between his own conscience and the lighter conscience of the others, who +have long since forgiven him. And he cannot feel himself free before he +has made his confession before the assembled monks, and even then only +when he has repeated the confession, against the will of the monastery, +to the people, and surrendered himself to the secular judges. The Roman +Catholic idea of confession is here wonderfully in agreement with +Dostoieffsky's conception of salvation by confession, of deliverance by +suffering self-imposed. In three climaxes of equal force at the end of +each of the three acts the tragic confession bursts into flame--first +born of fear, then of a sense of justice, and at the last positively +conceived as a pleasure; and here in these superb lyric ecstasies rest +the strong pinions which bear the tragedy. + +In the second, the social tragedy _Les Aubes,_ the scenario is the +present time. It has the purple scenery of _Les Villes Tentaculaires_, +of the cities with the arms of polypi, which drain the blood of the poor +dying country. Beggars, paupers, those who are starving, those who have +been evicted, march to Oppidomagnum, the modern industrial city, and +besiege it. It is the past once again storming the future. In the +lyrical trilogy this struggle had been shaped in a hundred visionary +instances; here, however, the bright sky of reconciliation is arched +above the battle-field, over the realities hovers the dream. For here +the future joins hands with the present. The great tribune, Hérénien, +breaks the backbone of this battle and shows himself the hero of a new +morality by secretly admitting the enemy into the city--in the old sense +the action of a traitor--by yielding and thus transforming the struggle +into a reconciliation. He is the tragic bearer of the moral idea that +enmity may be overcome by goodness, and he falls as the first martyr of +his faith. Verhaeren's social conception, his superb description of +realities, here merge slowly in a Utopia; the dawns of the new days +begin to shine above the pasts that are dead; the din of rebellion fades +away in harmony. This drama, like the others, is far remote from the +possibilities of the majority of theatres, because of the fact that here +too an ethical idea is expressed with all the glow and ecstasy which as +a rule in modern dramas is only found in the utterance of erotic desire. + +The third tragedy, _Philip II_., is a national drama, although its scene +is not laid in Flanders. Much as Charles de Coster in his _Thyl +Ulenspiegel_ had, with a Fleming's deadly hatred, seen in Philip II. the +hereditary enemy of liberty, Verhaeren, who with the lyric poetry of +his _Toute la Flandre_ became the representative singer of his native +land, painted this gloomy figure with hatred. Philip II. is here, as in +_Thyl Ulenspiegel,_ the hard, inflexible king who would fain put life +out because it burns too red for him, who wishes to have the world as +cool and marble-like as the chambers of the Escorial. Here of a sudden +the reverse side of Roman Catholicism, whose passion was immortalised in +_Le Cloître_, is rent open; its pitilessness and asceticism; its +obstinate effort to overthrow the irrefragable joy of life. Don Carlos, +however, is the fervent friend of the people, the friend of Flanders; he +is the will to enjoyment, to merry moods, to passion. And this struggle +between the 'yes' and the 'no' of life, this fight of Verhaeren's own +lyric crisis, this fight between the denial and the passionate approval +of enjoyment--at bottom, toe, the deepest cause of the war between Spain +and the Netherlands--is here symbolised in characters. Of course, any +comparison with Schiller's _Don Carlos_ must tell against Verhaeren, for +the German drama is far more dramatic and conceived on a scale of +greater magnificence; but Verhaeren did not aim at a complete rounding +off, at a plenitude of characters; all that he wanted was to show these +two feelings in their struggle with each other, the enthusiasm of life +and its suppression by force. A comparison with Schiller's drama best +shows Verhaeren's disregard of dramatic canons, and at the same time +the immense new lyric power of the play. For Spain is here seen with a +strength and intensity of vision which is probably without a parallel in +tragedy. The cold, hypocritical atmosphere can be felt; and better than +from words the character of Philip can be perceived in that one silent +scene in which he suddenly appears stealthily creeping to watch his son +in the arms of the countess, and then, without a gleam in his rigid +eyes, without the slightest movement of anger, vanishes again into the +dark. Behind him, however, behind the spy and the eavesdropper, glides +another shadow, the monk of the Inquisition: the eavesdropper is himself +shadowed, the ruler is himself ruled. Visions like these, with the +ecstasy of certain scenes, are the strongest motive power in Verhaeren's +poetic construction. His dramatic art, like the art of his lyrics, does +not rise in a steady ascent, but in sudden wild leaps and starts. + +Only in his last drama, _Hélène de Sparte_, has Verhaeren come nearer to +the accepted conception of the dramatic. That is characteristic of his +organic development. For now that he is in the years when passion of +necessity cools, harmony grows dear to him; and he who through all the +years of his youth and prime was a revolutionary, now recognises the +necessity of inner laws. By its mere intellectual substance this tragedy +expresses the veering round: it is nothing else than the longing from +passion to harmony, Helen's flight from adventures to repose. And the +return is to be found again in the verse, for Verhaeren here for the +first time takes up the traditional French metre; his form, though yet +free, approaches the Alexandrine. The tragedy of Helen is the tragedy of +beauty. Helen is one of those antique characters who in Greek literature +were only sketched in fleeting lines, characters whom a modern poet is +now entitled to fill in with his own fate. For from the Greek sources we +really knew nothing about her personal fate; we only knew the effect she +exercised, only the reflection of her personality on others, not that of +others on her. She was the queen who inflamed all men; who was the cause +of great wars; the woman for whose sake murder on murder was committed; +who was snatched from one bed to another; for love of whom Achilles +arose from the dead; who passed her life circled by disastrous passion. +But whether she herself shared these passions, whether she grew by them +or suffered by them, the poets tell us nothing. Verhaeren in his drama +has now attempted to depict the tragedy of the woman who endures fearful +suffering because she is always desired in lust and no more; who is +consumed by the torture of being ever robbed from lover by lover; of +never knowing the look of pure eyes, calm converse, quiet breathing; who +is cursed always to stand at the pyre of passion, with the flames of +men always blazing round her. Whoever looks at her at once desires her, +snatches her; none waits and asks whether he serves her will; she is +robbed like a chattel; she glides from hand to hand. In Verhaeren's +drama Helen has returned home, a woman tired, tired of all unrest, of +all her triumphs, tired of love; a woman hating her own beauty because +it creates unrest, longing for nothing but old age, when none shall +desire her more and her days shall be calm. Menelaus has brought her +home, rescued her from all that stifling steam of criminal passion; now +she would breathe quietly, live calm days, and be faithful to him. She +desires no more than this. No passion can tempt her more. 'I have seen +the flaring of so many flames that now I love only the hearth's glow and +the lamp' is the expression of her poignant resignation. But fate will +not yet let her go. Verhaeren has here seized on the great idea of the +Greeks that everything that is superhuman on earth, every excessive +gift, even that of beauty, is pursued as a hybrid by the envy of the +gods, and must be paid for with pain. Too great beauty is no profit, but +a tragic gift. And hardly has Helen returned, to rest and be happy, to +be like everybody else, than new clouds roll themselves up above her +head. Her own brother desires her; her enemy Electra desires her; her +husband is murdered for her sake; and the old fearful battle threatens +to break out anew for the possession of her body. Now she flees, away +from men, out into nature. And here again, with the vision of genius, +Verhaeren approaches Greek feeling. The forest is not dead to him, but +animate; life does not stop at human beings; fauns emerge from the +bushes, naiads from the rivers, bacchantes from the mountains, and all +swarm round Helen in her despair, luring her to their lust, till she +flees to Zeus in death. + +It is characteristic of Verhaeren that he has made even this tragedy, +the tragedy of Helen, anerotic, or better anti-erotic. Perhaps the +slight interest which has hitherto been manifested in Verhaeren's +dramas, and indeed partly in his whole work, may be ascribed to the fact +that, in comparison with the other poets of his day, he has held himself +aloof from erotic subjects, that the problem of love has only recently, +in the years of his maturity, begun to interest him as a theme for his +art. From the first Verhaeren concentrated all the passion which others +lavished on the erotic in purely intellectual things, in enthusiasm, in +admiration. In his dramas woman plays an almost subordinate rôle, and +_Le Cloître_ is perhaps the only important drama of our days which does +not show a single woman among its characters and in its inner circle of +problems. By this fact alone his dramatic aim strays too far from the +interests of our public. For it is from a purely intellectual conflict +that Verhaeren seeks to disengage that height and heat of passion which +hitherto was known only in erotic themes; and therefore the exaltation +strikes the majority of an audience as strange, and leaves them unmoved. +All our contemporaries who seek art only in the theatre are too +indifferent and timid to be snatched up, for a purely ethical problem, +into an ecstasy so burning, so persistently lit with convulsive +lightnings. This is the only explanation I can find for the opposition +to Verhaeren's dramas, which are so full of beauty and of living, +dramatic, passionate situations, and which, above all, contain something +new, a new dramatic style. This very kindling of prose to verse was a +revelation. But the whole dramatic aim is different in Verhaeren to that +which obtains on the stage of to-day. His aim is not to excite interest, +not to produce fear and compassion, but enthusiasm. He does not wish to +occupy the minds of his audience, but to carry them away into his +rhythm. He wishes to make them drunk with his great excitement, because +only he who gazes in enthusiasm is capable of recognising these supreme +passions; he wishes to make the spectators as feverish as the characters +they see before them on the stage; he wishes to make their blood fiery; +wishes to raise them above all cool, calm, and critical contemplation. +His whole temperament, which drives along in the direction of +superabundance; his art, which only fulfils its purpose in ecstasy; +require impassioned actors and an impassioned audience. To create the +ideal atmosphere which Verhaeren demands for his dramas would require an +actor of kindred genius who should have no fear of being called +emotional, and who would hurl the verses down like cataracts, +emphasising like a demagogue and at the same time unfolding all the +magnificence of the rhythm. For the poet asks for nothing save a feeling +of enthusiasm corresponding to that which first created the poem in him. +His intention is not to convince by logic, not to dazzle by pictures, +but to whip up and carry along with him into that ultimate dizzy feeling +which to him is alone identical with the highest form of the feeling of +life--into passion. + +In Germany _Le Cloître_,[1] as staged by Max Reinhardt, and again in the +Deutsches Volkstheater in Vienna, has conquered the interest of a +literary public and triumphed unreservedly over the obstacle of its own +strangeness. There has been an exemplary production of _Philip II._ in +the Munich Künstlertheater; _Hélène de Sparte_ on the other hand has not +yet found the setting it demands. As bodied forth in Paris by Ida +Rubinstein, with decorations of a grandiose barbarism by Bakst, with a +ground-colouring of music, it was effective more by the external +magnificence of this somewhat sensationally advertised _mise en scène_ +than by its poetic qualities, smothered as they were by the +accessories. A production which shall do justice to the play, leaving +its pure lyric line unbedizened with glaring arabesques, is still +waiting as a task for some actor-manager of genius who possesses that +highest and rarest quality of being able to subordinate himself to the +utterance, who is anxious not to ruin a noble simplicity by a spurious +plenitude. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] A version of _Le Cloître_, by Mr. Osman Edwards, was successfully +produced by Miss Horniman at the Gaiety Theatre in Manchester in 1910. + + + + + +PART III + +COMPLETING FORCES + + +LES VISAGES DE LA VIE--LES FORCES TUMULTUEUSES--LA MULTIPLE +SPLENDEUR--TOUTE LA FLANDRE--LES HEURES CLAIRES --LES HEURES +D'APRÈS-MIDI--LES HEURES DU SOIR--LES RYTHMES SOUVERAINS +--LES BLÉS MOUVANTS + +1900-1914 + + + + +COSMIC POETRY + + ... Les vols + Vers la beauté toujours plus claire et plus certaine. + É.V., 'Les Spectacles.' + +The poetic conquest of life represents, as it were, a process of +combustion. Every poet feeds the flame of his inner being, his artistic +passion, with the things of the world around him, transmutes them into +flame, and himself shoots on high and dies down with them. The more the +flame cools with the feebler circulation of the blood, the weaker grows +this fire, and gradually the pure crystals, the residue from this battle +of the inner flame with the things of reality, are separated from this +process of combustion. Verhaeren's work was in his youth and prime a +flame exceedingly hot, lawless, free, and flaring like the very years of +his youth and prime. Now, however, in the work of his fifties, now that +passion has cooled, the yearning is revealed to find the goal of this +passion, the inherent lawfulness of this unrest. Enthusiasm for the +present, poetic consumption of the world in visions without the residue +of philosophy and logical knowledge, no longer suffice him. For all +deeper contemplation of the present is unthinkable without an exceeding +of its limits: all that is, is at the same time something that has been +and something that will be. Nothing is so entirely the present that it +is not intimately connected with the past and the future. The eternal +and the permanent is the inward side of all phenomena. And the more the +poet turns his visions from the exterior, from the pictorial, to the +inner world, to psychology, the more he descends from external phenomena +to the roots of forces, the more he must apprehend the permanent behind +the transitoriness of things. No perception of a contemporary state is +fertile unless it is impregnated with the perception of laws that are +independent of time, unless the changing phenomena are recognised as +transformations of the unchangeable primordial phenomenon. This +transition from maturity to age, from contemplation to knowledge, +corresponds to a new artistic transition in the incomparably organic +development of this poet. A transition: no longer a re-formation, but a +formation which moves both forwards and backwards, which is at the same +time an evolution and a retrogression, just as the poetic form of +Verhaeren's poetry no longer undergoes a transformation, but is +petrified. What a man has acquired in the years of his prime is an +inalienable possession; its value can be further increased only by +knowledge, by the appraising of the possession. It may be said that a +man who has passed his prime experiences nothing new: the static +equilibrium is realised; what has been experienced is only the better +understood. The experience is no longer a struggle, no longer a state of +unrest, something that slips away; it is a possession. What passion has +fought for and won with a leap is now set in order and appraised at its +true value, by calm. This transition from youth to age is in Verhaeren, +to use Nietzsche's phrase, a transition from the Dionysiac to the +Apollinarian, from a plethora to harmony. His yearning is now _vivre +ardent et clair_, to live passionately, but at the same time clearly to +preserve his inner fire, but at the same time to lose his unrest. +Verhaeren's books in these years grow more and more crystalline; the +fire in them no longer blazes openly like a flaring pyre, but glitters +and sparkles as with the thousand facets of a precious stone. The smoke +and the unrest of the fire die down, and now the pure residues are +clarified. Visions have become ideas, the wrestling earthly energies are +now eternal immutable laws. + +The will of these last years, of these last works, is the will to +realise a cosmic poem. In the trilogy of the cities Verhaeren had laid +hold on the universe as it lies around us to-day; he had snatched it to +him and overcome it. In passionate visions he had shaped its image, +achieved its form, and now it stood beside the actual world as his own. +But a poet who would create the whole world for himself, the whole +infinite vista of its possibilities by the side of its actualities, must +give it everything: not only its form, not only its face, but its soul +as well, its organism, its origin, and its evolution. He must not merely +apprehend its pictorial aspect and its mechanical energy, he must give +it an encyclopædic form. He must create a mythology for it, a new +morality, a new history, a new system of dynamics, a new system of +ethics. Above it or in it he must place a God who acts and transforms. +He must fashion it in his poetry not only as something that is, not only +as something in the present, but as something that has been and is +becoming, something that is part and parcel of the past and of the +future too. It must ring out the old and ring in the new. And this will +to create a cosmic poem is to be found in Verhaeren's new and most +precious books--_Les Visages de la Vie, Les Forces Tumultueuses, La +Multiple Splendeur, Les Rythmes Souverains_---books which by their mere +title announce the effort to include the dome of heaven in their vast +embrace. They are the pillars of a mighty structure, the great stanzas +of the cosmic poem. They are no longer a conversation of the poet with +himself and contemporary feeling; they are a pronouncement addressed to +all the ages. _S'élancer vers l'avenir_ is the longing they express: a +turning away from all the pasts to speak to the future. The lyric +element in them steps beyond the boundary-line of poetry. It kindles the +neighbouring domains of philosophy and religion, kindles them to new +possibilities. For not only æsthetically would Verhaeren come to an +understanding with realities; not by poetry only would he overcome the +new possibilities; he would fain master them morally and religiously as +well. The task of these last and most important books of verse is no +longer to apprehend the universe in individual phenomena, but to impress +its new form on a new law. In _Les Visages de la Vie_ Verhaeren has in +individual poems glorified the eternal forces, gentleness, joy, +strength, activity, enthusiasm; in _Les Forces Tumultueuses_ the +mysterious dynamics of union shining through all forms of the real; in +_La Multiple Splendeur_ the ethics of admiration, the joyous +relationship of man with things and with himself; and in _Les Rythmes +Souverains_ he has celebrated the most illustrious heroes of his ideals. +For life has long since ceased to be for him mere gazing and +contemplation: + + Car vivre, c'est prendre et donner avec liesse + ...................avide et haletant + Devant la vie intense et sa rouge sagesse![1] + +Description, poetic analysis, has gradually grown into a hymn, into +'laudi del cielo, del mare, del mondo,' into songs of the whole world +and of the ego, and of the harmony of the world's beauty in its union +with the ego. The lyrical has here become cosmic feeling, knowledge has +become ecstasy. Over and above the knowledge that there cannot be +anything isolated, that everything is arranged and obeys the last +uniform law of the universe, over and above this knowledge rises +something still higher--over the contemplation of the world rises faith +in the feeling of the world. The glorious optimism of these works ends +in the religious confidence that all contrasts will be harmonised; that +man will more and more be conscious of the earth; that every individual +must discover his own law of the world in himself, the law that makes it +possible for him to apprehend everything lyrically, with enthusiasm, +with joy. + +Here Verhaeren's poetry far exceeds the boundary-line of literature; it +becomes philosophy and it becomes religion. Verhaeren was from the very +first an eminently religious man. In his childhood Catholicism was the +deepest feeling of his life, but this Catholicism had perished in the +crises of his adolescence, his religious feeling had given way to the +rapt contemplation of all new things, to ecstasy inspired by the aspect +of life. But now, when Verhaeren returns to the metaphysical, the old +yearning is reawakened. The old gods are dead for him; Pan is dead, and +Christ too. Now he feels the need of finding a new faith, a new +certainty, a new God for the new sensation, this identity of I and +world. The new conflicts have created a longing in him for a new +equilibrium; his stormily religious feeling, determined to believe, +needs new cognition. The image of the world would be incomplete without +the God who rules it. All his yearning goes out to this God, and it +finds its fulfilment. And this knowledge gives him the highest joy life +can have, the loftiest pride life can bestow: + + Voici l'heure qui bout de sang et de jeunesse. + * * * * * + Un vaste espoir, venu de l'inconnu, déplace + L'équilibre ancien dont les âmes sont lasses; + La nature paraît sculpter + Un visage nouveau à son éternité.[2] + +To chisel this new face of God is the aim of his last and most mature +works, in which the obstinate 'no' of his youth has become the loud +exulting 'yes' of life, in which the great possibilities of old have +become an unsuspected opulent reality. + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] 'Un Soir' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[2] 'La Foule' (_Les Visages de la Vie_). + + + + +THE LYRIC UNIVERSE + + Il faut aimer, pour découvrir avec génie. + É.V., 'Un Soir.' + + +If one is to understand Verhaeren's lyric work as a work of art, it must +be kept in mind that he is a lyric poet, and a lyric poet only. A lyric +poet only, not, however, in the limited sense of one who confines +himself to the writing of lyric poems, but of one who, in a lofty and +more extensive meaning of the term, transforms everything into emotion, +who stands in a lyric relationship with all things, with the whole +world. And since the innermost constitution of a man's talent +unconsciously acts as the driving tendency, the direction of the aim of +his life, his very fate and his conception of the world, since all this +is so, the lyric poet that Verhaeren is must of necessity have a lyrical +conception of the world, his cosmic feeling _must_ be lyrical. To say +that he has confined himself to the lyric style would be to diminish his +stature. It is true that in all Verhaeren's imaginative work--and it is +of considerable volume--there is no prose. A very thin volume of short +stories did indeed appear many years ago and has long been out of print; +but how tentative and provisional it was in scope may be seen from the +fact that Verhaeren later on turned one of the stories, that of the +bell-ringer in the burning tower, into a poem. And I might mention a +whole series of poems which at bottom are nothing but short stories, and +others again which are saturated with dramatic excitement, quite +unlyrical problems, but all of them lyrically conceived. And even in his +criticism of art and in that penetrating and beautiful book of his on +Rembrandt, in which he represents the organic connection of the artist +with his native province almost as a personal experience, the +outstanding passages live by their lyric enthusiasm. Many of the poems +again are spiritualised theories of art. The origin of language or the +sociological problem of emigration, the economic contrast of agrarianism +and industrialism: in an essay such things might be calmly treated, +coldly passed in review. But this is characteristic of Verhaeren, that +he is unable to take a cold, faint interest in anything: consciously or +unconsciously he must be carried away by enthusiasm for the things he +contemplates. The ecstasy of his excitement involuntarily whips him out +of a slow trot into lyric fervour. Poetry is to him, like his +philosophy, like his ethics, a lyrical soaring. It is characteristic of +the great lyric poets, of Walt Whitman, Dehmel, Carducci, Rilke, Stefan +George, that at a certain height of their artistry they renounce all +other than lyric forms. Here, as elsewhere, great things only seem +possible of attainment by concentration, only by the poet's freeing +himself from the trammels of all other experiments. Great lyric poetry +as the art of a life only accrues from the renunciation of all other +forms of poetry. + +Infinite enthusiasm, _le lyrisme universel_, a rapt visionary sensation +of the earth rolling as it were in an eternal vibration through the +cosmos, is the aim of Verhaeren's work. Not to describe the world in +isolated poems, not to break it up in impressions, but to feel it as +itself a flaring, flaming poem, _not to be one who contemplates the +world, but one who feels it_, this is his highest yearning. A lyric art +can only grow to such intentions as these from emotions not felt by +other lyrists. It is not, as with most poets, from gentle crepuscular +feelings, from vague states of melancholy, that such an impulse is +crystallised to lyrical expression; here it is an overflowing fulness of +feeling, a bright joy in life, that engenders his poem; an explosion +which in the days of his debility was a paroxysm, which as time went on +changed to a pure enthusiasm, but which was always an eruption of +strength. Lyric art is here a discharge of the whole feeling of life. +With Verhaeren the excitement does not sting the individual nerve; it +spreads electrically, inflames the blood, contracts the muscles, +produces an immense pressure, and then discharges the whole energy of a +body saturated with health and strength. _The will to discharge strength +is the basic form of Verhaeren's lyric emotion_. His aim is to instil +inspiration--first of all into himself (since inspiration always +represents a higher state of ecstasy), and then into others. His lyric +art is above all a launching of himself into exaltation, 'le pouvoir +magique de s'hypnotiser soi-même.'[1] He talks himself into passion, +gives himself that impulsion which then bears others along with him. It +is not a lack, a privation, not a complaint or a wish that his work +expresses; it is a plethora, a superfluity of riches, a pressure. It is +not a warding off of life but an eternal leaping at it. His poetry has +not the modest longing of music to lure to reveries; it does not, like +painting, seek to represent something: it would act like fiery wine; it +would make all feelings strong and glowing, sink all hindrances, produce +that sensation of lightness, of blessedness, that quivering intoxication +which conquers all the heaviness of earth. His intention is to produce +this state of drunkenness, 'non seulement la glorification de la nature +mais la glorification même d'une vision intérieure.' And his attitude is +not plaintive or defensive, it is the great spirited attitude of a hand +raised and pointing out, 'regardez!' the adjuring attitude, 'dites!' or +one that fires and animates, 'en avant!' but it is always a gesture from +the poet's self towards something, always a swinging of his arms away +from himself into the universe, always a pressing forward, a snatching +away of himself from matter. And any one who really feels these poems +feels, when the last line is read, that his blood is beating faster, +feels that his body calls for exercise, feels the inspiration impelling +him to action. _And this is the highest intention of Verhaeren's lyrical +poetry, to animate, to quicken the blood, to fire the heart, to +intensify vitality, to increase tenfold the sensation of life_. + +But not only in this basic emotion is Verhaeren sundered from all those +other poets who fashion their verses from sadness, sickly longing, +amorousness, and melancholy. Verhaeren's lyric poetry breathes in other +realms, in another atmosphere. Verhaeren is what I should like to call a +poet of the daylight, of the open air. If you peruse the lyric works of +contemporary poets you will find that their moods mostly arise from +states of dusk and darkness. Since they have only the power of +reproducing blurred outlines, they are fond of landscapes softened by +twilight; of night, when there is no hardness in things, when what they +see meets them half-way, already shaping itself into verse. Like +Tristan, they hate the day as the destroyer of poetry, and swathe +themselves in the trembling chiaroscuro of twilight. But the really +great lyric poets have always been poets of the daylight; poets of the +day and of the light, as the Greeks were, to whom all things that were +bathed in sun spoke of beauty and cheerfulness; poets of the day, as +Walt Whitman was, the American; as all strong men have been who were +filled with the zest of life. In Germany we have Dehmel to love, one of +the few who have the courage to look right into the shining face of +things without the fear of being blinded. But Verhaeren loves things the +more the more intensive and decided they are, the more dazzling they +are, the more their glaring colours clash. He does not surprise things +when they are asleep, when they are resting and are helpless and at the +mercy of poetry; he pounces on them when they are wideawake and can +defend themselves with all their hardness from the attacks of their +lyric lover. He loves the day, which places things side by side in harsh +contrast; he loves the light, because it stimulates the blood; the rain +that lashes the body; the wind that whips the skin; cold, noise, he +loves everything that really and vehemently forces in upon him, +everything that forces him to fight. He loves hard things more than soft +and rounded things; loves that characteristic, black, and gloomy city +Toledo more than golden, dreamy Florence; he loves the wind and the +weather of frowning, tragic landscapes; he even loves noisy and +thunderous cities pregnant with smoke and choking air. His nerves are +not so morbidly sensitive that they respond to the least suggestion, the +feeblest touch, and then stand impotent, fainting, when they are faced +by the impetuous stimulants of robust life; his nerves are--not dull, +but healthy. They respond strongly to whatever lays hold of them +strongly. If the other poets are like supersensitive beings who are +excited by every trifle and lose their self-control when really great +demands are made upon them, Verhaeren is like one who is hard to +irritate, but who, if he is really stung, strikes out with his fists. +_And Verhaeren does not love the poetical things that come to meet one +already clothed in beauty; he loves those that have first to be wrestled +with and overcome. Herein lies the exceeding masculinity of his art_. No +one could ever surmise, in reading a poem of Verhaeren's, that it was +the work of a woman. And as a matter of fact Verhaeren has not yet found +an audience among women. For he is not one who moans and begs for pity; +he is no passive poet, but a fighter, one who wrestles with all strong, +wild, and living things until they yield up to him their innermost +beauty. + +And this struggle for the lyric mastery of individual sensations +gradually becomes a struggle for all things, for the whole world. For +Verhaeren does not wish to conceive of anything as unlyrical; does not +wish to blow lyric fragments off the immense mass of reality; he wishes +to sculpture it into a new shape; wishes to chisel the whole world into +a lyric. And this is the secret of his lyric work; _this_ is his work, +his task. Of a sudden we feel the distance between him and the majority +of lyric poets. _They_ have the feelings of people who receive gifts; +they regard the sensations which come fluttering towards them as so many +gay butterflies, capture them, and pin them down. Verhaeren, however, is +the fighter, the worker, who is constrained to conquer everything, to +shape the whole world anew, to rebuild it nearer to his heart's +enthusiasm. He is the lyric poet pictured by Carducci in an imperishable +poem--not the idler gazing into empty space; not the gardener decking +the paths that his lady's feet must tread, and gathering frail violets +for her bosom. + + Il poeta è un grande artiere, + Che al mestiere + Fece i muscoli d'acciaio, + Capo ha fier, collo robusto, + Nudo il busto, + Duro il braccio, e l'occhio gaio. + +And that 'picchia, picchia,' that rhythm of Carducci's, that beat of the +bronze hammer of toil, rings in the measure of his verses. All his poems +have been toiled for, fought for; they are a trophy, a meed of victory; +nothing is a lucky gift. Verhaeren's manuscripts look like a +battlefield. For he is not a poet who, in Goethe's sense, composes poems +for particular occasions; he is never overpowered by a sudden chance +idea: he transforms a problem of life, an actuality, or an intellectual +phase into a lyric mood. After he has molten the poetic idea in his +passion to a white heat, he hammers it into a poem by his rhythm. His +works are complexes: individual ideas attract him; he sets a hedge round +their poetical field, ploughs it, scatters the seed in it, and never +returns to the scene. What he has once achieved has no longer any +attraction for him. To him poetry is always a fight, always work, always +a plan. The layman who would fain look upon a lyric poem as a gift +fallen from heaven will perhaps have no liking for this conscious +method; an artist, on the other hand, will recognise in it the strength +of a wise restraint, concentration on one aim, the will to compose not a +lyric poem but a lyric work. A poetic work like that of Verhaeren, the +work of a life, is not created by chance feeling alone, and not by +enthusiasm. Such a work of art has, like a drama, its intellectual laws, +the conquering and distributing powers of the intelligence, instinct, +and above all that unifying will which suffers no dead points, no gaps, +no stains in the work. And it is from such a vast lyric will that this +work has arisen. Verhaeren is no favoured child of fortune, dowered with +art in his cradle; his blood is heavy, Teutonic blood; and, fortunately, +that ease and suppleness of the artisan which in all departments of +labour produces a ready mediocrity was as much wanting in him as all +physical skill. Verhaeren's poetic work, his form, his rhythm, his idea, +his philosophy, his architectonics, all this is something he has +acquired by labour, something he has painfully produced by passion and +an obstinate will; but for that very reason it is something organic. +For Verhaeren is one of those who learn slowly, persistently, and +surely, only from their own experience and never from others, but who +never forget and lose what they have once acquired; one of those who +grow as the things of Nature do, as trees grow into their strength ring +by ring, and rise year by year higher above the earth to gaze farther +and farther out beyond the horizons and nearer and nearer into the +heavens. + +And just for this reason, because this evolution was so persistent, +because it was so wholly based upon experience, is the ascending line in +his work so harmonious and so organic. No other lyric work of our days +is so much a symbol of the seasons, so much a mirror of human +periodicity. The revolt of spring, the sultriness of summer, the +fruitage of autumn, and the cool clearness of winter gently merge in it, +the one into the other. In his first books, at an age when many +precocious poets have finished their development, he was still wrestling +for his new form, for his expression. Nor did he at that time soon +arrive at the heart of things; he remained for a long time absorbed in +the purely picturesque contemplation of their external aspects. Then he +attempted experiments, and freed himself in revolution. But in his +beginnings he was always a student, an experimenter. In his second +period, having really penetrated below the surface, he found his own +form, like every master, and subdued the internal with the external. But +now that material is conquered, he that was a student and is now a +master will of necessity be a teacher, and feel impelled to deduce +forces from phenomena, laws from forces, the eternal from the earthly. +From vacant contemplation he had risen to passionate creation, to active +creation of art. The supreme creation of art has ever been the +converting of the unconscious into consciousness, the recognition and +knowledge of the laws of art; from the real the path proceeds to that +which transcends reality, to faith and to religion. Like every really +organic poet, Verhaeren has had to repeat the ascent of universal +history in his own evolution. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Albert Mockel, _Emile Verhaeren_. + + + + +SYNTHESES + + Réunir notre esprit et le monde + Dans les deux mains d'une très simple loi profonde. + É.V., 'L'Attente.' + + +After the great visions of the cities, after the wonderful +interpretations of democracy, there was a moment of appeasement in +Verhaeren's work--a lyrical intermezzo of little books: an almanac of +the months unfolding in short poems, the cosy happiness of wedded love +enshrined in grateful song, the legends of Flanders told in richly +coloured pictures, and then, in the great pentalogy _Toute la Flandre_, +the cities, coasts, heroes, and great men of his native province +compressed in one single picture. But after that Verhaeren takes up once +again his old path across the earth; passes again through the roaring +cities, the pregnant fields; wanders along the sea-shore; once again +through the landscapes of _Les Flamandes_ and _Les Moines_, of _Les +Villes Tentaculaires_ and _Les Campagnes Hallucinées_. It is now the +return of the spiral in Goethe's sense of evolution; the return to the +same point, but on a higher level, with a loftier outlook, in a narrower +circle, and for that reason nearer to the last, the highest point. Once +again Verhaeren surveys the modern world: now, however, with different +eyes, which no longer remain resting on the aspect of the world, but +press farther to the cause of all. What he had formerly seen sensuously, +the things whose values he had æsthetically estimated and transmuted, he +now looks at from the intellectual side, that he may estimate their +value morally. He no longer sees each thing separately, no longer adds +picture to picture, vision to vision, like a game of coloured cards: he +now unites them in one living chain. He no longer searches through +individual and detached phenomena; he now sees them together against the +background of his lofty intention to weld them into one single picture. +Now he composes, not individual poems, but fragments of his world-poem. +For, from the time that Verhaeren began to look at things with conscious +enthusiasm, they assumed different forms. The straining of his epoch no +longer seems to him to be a solitary manifestation of energy, but only a +Protean form of the eternal discharge of vigour; the will to life no +longer seems to him to be the deed of individual men, but the vitalised +primitive will of all humanity. And so, just as of old he attempted in +his vision a synthesis of energies, he now sees laws flowing into one +supreme and highest thing, into a cosmic law. + +Lyric exaltation now arches the dream of its laws over reality. But it +is no longer the mere dream of a youth in expectancy of life--the +anæmic, vague, dark, restless dream--but a man's longing to get behind +life and follow it to its earthly limit. It is a Utopia enhancing +realities beyond themselves; it is the dream of Godhead in things. In +the whole world Verhaeren sees a cosmic effort. 'Le monde est trépidant +de trains et de navires.'[1] The whole world is excited with human +activity and effort; manifestations of the feeling of life flame +everywhere; everywhere humanity is fighting for something invisible and +perhaps unattainable. But whereas of old the poet estimated the value of +every separate energy, now he comprehends all energies as one uniform +manifestation, recognises behind the unconscious activity of the +individual the sway of something greater--the bourne of all humanity. +All who work in the material of the temporal only symbolise eternal +forces--intoxication, energy, conquest, joy, error, expectation, Utopia. +And it is to these forces, or rather to these forms of the force at the +root of all things, that his poems are addressed. In _Les Visages de la +Vie_ he seeks to describe yearning in all its forms and aims; its +distribution in human labour, its restlessness, its vigour, and, above +all, its beauty. But not only human manifestations now appear to him in +a closer cohesion, the synthesis of realism and metaphysics now makes +his relationship to elementary things richer and more heroic. Now, when +he treats some motive he had already treated in the first books, and +these poems of the first and last periods are compared, it is with +astonishment and admiration that you trace the silent growth of these +last years. I will mention one example. He had already sung a song to +the wind. But the wind at that time was to him the evil storm that +tousles cottages, shakes chimneys, forces its way into rooms, rages +across country, and brings the winter. It was a senseless power, +beautiful in its senselessness, but aimless, an incomprehensible +element, a detached phenomenon of Nature. Now, however, the poet in his +maturity looks upon it as the wanderer over the undying world, one that +has seen all countries, that drives ships over seas, that has sated +itself with the perfume of strange flowers and brings it from far away, +that penetrates our chest like an aroma and steels and expands it. Now +he loves the wind as one of the thousand things of the earth which +contribute to the intensification of his vital feeling. + + Si j'aime, admire et chante avec folie, + Le vent, + * * * * * + C'est qu'il grandit mon être entier et c'est qu'avant + De s'infiltrer, par mes poumons et par mes pores, + Jusques au sang dont vit mon corps, + Avec sa force rude ou sa douceur profonde, + Immensément, il a étreint le monde.[2] + +So, too, a tree becomes to him the image of the eternal renewal of +strength, of resistance to the hardness of winter and of fate, of the +will to new beauty in the spring. A mountain no longer appears to him as +a chance raising of the landscape, but a great and mighty thing in whose +keeps secrets lie, ores, and the source of springs, from whose summit, +however, our eyes can sweep the world. The forest interprets itself to +him as the labyrinth of a thousand paths, and as the many-voiced anthem +of life: everything in nature becomes a freshening and a vivifying of +this vitality. _An absolute transmutation of values has taken place from +the time that he has comprehended things as parts of the world's entity, +and as themselves an entity_. Travel, formerly a flight from reality, +now becomes to him the opening out of new distances, of new +possibilities; dream appears to him no longer as an illusion, but as the +capacity of intensifying the real from its present to a future state. +Europe is no longer to him a group of nations, a geographical idea, but +the great symbol of conquest, money, gold, he no longer regards +contemptuously as a materialising of life, but as a new spur for new +ambition. And the sea, which in every succeeding work of his sings its +unquiet rhythm, is no longer the murderous power that eats into the +land, but the holy tide, the symbol of constant strength in eternal +unrest; it is to him 'la mer nue et pure, comme une idée.'[3] Since +everything coheres, he feels related to all in a touching brotherhood +with things; he no longer feels the presence of things, he loves them +like a piece of himself; he feels the sea physically in himself + + Ma peau, mes mains et mes cheveux + Sentent la mer + Et sa couleur est dans mes yeux.[4] + +And so, just as his vital feeling is renewed every time he comes into +contact with the waves, he believes in a physical resurrection of the +body out of the sea, believes that his rising from the water is a +_nouveau moment de conscience_. Verhaeren has returned to the great +cohesion: in Nature and in man there is no longer for him any phenomenon +which might not become a symbol for him, a symbol of the great vital +instinct, to stimulate and fire his vitality. + +And since he now responds to all things with this one feeling, a uniform +conception of the world must involuntarily result from this unity of +feeling. _To the unity of enthusiasm corresponds the unity of the world, +the monistic feeling_. Just as he himself derives nothing but an +intensification and exaltation of his feelings from all things, nothing +but the very sensation of life, all phenomena and activities must be a +synthesis, all forces must flow into one single force as rivers flow +into the ocean, all laws must merge in one single law + + Toute la vie, avec ses lois, avec ses formes, + --Multiples doigts noueux de quelque main énorme-- + S'entr'ouvre et se referme en un poing: l'unité.[5] + +And thus, this straining of all humanity, discharged in a thousand +forms, must be something in common, a fight against something lying +outside of itself, against a resistance which still makes life seem +hard, dull, and turbid. This fight of humanity cannot be other than +directed against something that impedes the sensation of life. And this, +the only thing which struggles against humanity, is in Verhaeren's eyes +the supremacy of Nature, the mystery of divine intervention, the +subjection of man to fate--in short, all divinity that does not reside +in man. As soon as man is dependent on nobody except himself and his own +strength, he too will attain the great joyousness of all the things of +Nature. + +_This fight of man to become God, this fight for his independence, his +freedom from chance and the supernatural--this is the great metaphysical +idea of Verhaeren's work_. His last books seek to represent nothing else +than this one highest battle of man, this struggle to be free from all +that is laid upon him, not by himself, but by Nature, from all that +impedes his will to become a thing of Nature, an elementary force, +himself. This struggle is the highest and purest effort, for + + Rien n'est plus haut, malgré l'angoisse et le tourment, + Que la bataille avec l'énigme et les ténèbres.[6] + +Man in this battle defends himself against darkness, against what is +unknown, against Heaven, against all laws that restrict his expansion; +the whole aim of man, the aim he has unconsciously been following for a +thousand years, is independence, is to become a law unto himself: + + L'homme dans l'univers n'a qu'un maître, lui-même, + Et l'univers entier est ce maître, dans lui.[7] + +To-day he is still counteracted by chance, or, as many conceive it, by +divinity. Wholly to conquer this, to substitute the determination of +one's own destiny for chance, will be the great task of the future. Much +has been taken from chance already. Lightning, the most dangerous power +of heaven, is conquered; distances are bridged over; the forms of Nature +are changed; social communities have by common action diverted the +iniquity of the weather; diseases are from year to year being fathomed +and checked; more and more every incalculable element is being brought +within the range of calculation and fore-sight. But all that is unknown +must more and more be the booty of man, whose highest will is 'fouiller +l'inconnu.'[8] More and more his eyes penetrate the subterranean and +mysterious workings of Nature. + + Or aujourd'hui c'est la réalité + Secrète encor, mais néanmoins enclose + Au cours perpétuel et rythmique des choses, + + Qu'on veut, avec ténacité, + Saisir, pour ordonner la vie et sa beauté + Selon les causes.[9] + +For this battle everybody is a soldier in man's war of liberation, all +of us stand invisibly ranked together. Everybody who wrests from Nature +in increment to knowledge, who does something never done before, +everybody who by poetry fires others to action, tears off a piece of the +veil. With every step forward that man takes against the dark, with +every foot of ground he conquers, divinity loses strength to him; and +this will go on until at length nothing remains of the God of old, until +the identity of the two ideas humanity and divinity is unconsciously +accomplished. + + Héros, savant, artiste, apôtre, aventurier, + Chacun troue à son tour le mur noir des mystères + Et, grâce à ces labeurs groupés et solitaires, + L'être nouveau se sent l'univers tout entier. + +Seen from this height, professions assume a new poetic value. In the +front rank of fighting men Verhaeren sees those the effort of whose life +it is to acquire knowledge--the men of science. Verhaeren is perhaps the +only one among modern poets who has conceived of science as of perfectly +equal value with poetry, _who has discovered new moral and religious +values in science, just as he had already discovered new æsthetic values +in industrialism and democracy_. Most poets had hitherto looked upon +science as a hindrance, because they were afraid of clear things as they +were afraid of real things. They looked upon science as the destroyer of +myths, the negation of every noble superstition which in their eyes was +indissolubly connected with the poetical. But just as machinery seemed +to them to be ugly, because in the machines they saw beauty had +retreated from the outer to the interior form, here too the new ethical +value is hidden not in the method but in the aim. Verhaeren esteems +science as the great fighter for the new conception of the world: 'Le +monde entier est repensé par leurs cervelles.'[10] He knows that the +little increments to knowledge which are continually being made in our +days in thousands of places, in sanatoria and lecture-rooms, +observatories and studies, with microscopes and chemical analyses, +weighing and calculation, with measures and numbers, that these little +additions to knowledge may, by comparison and reproduction, grow into +great creative discoveries which will immensely enrich our vital +feeling. And this hymn to science is at the same time a hymn to our +epoch; for no epoch before ours has so consciously bought for the +advancement of knowledge, none has been so replete with the longing for +new knowledge and the transmutation of values: + + L'acharnement à tout peser, à tout savoir + Fouille la forêt drue et mouvante des êtres.[11] + +In inspired words Verhaeren celebrates science as the highest effort of +our age as of the past; for he knows that what to us to-day is +presupposed and self-evident was a thousand years-ago the goal of the +most ardent effort, that the road we pace indolently to-day is soaked +with the blood of martyrs. + + Dites! quels temps versés au gouffre des années, + Et quelle angoisse ou quel espoir des destinées, + Et quels cerveaux chargés de noble lassitude + A-t-il fallu pour faire un peu de certitude? + * * * * * + Dites! les feux et les bûchers; dites! les claies; + Les regards fous, en des visages d'effroi blanc; + Dites! les corps martyrisés, dites! les plaies + Criant la vérité, avec leur bouche en sang.[12] + +But he knows equally well that the acquisitions of to-day are again only +hypotheses for the new truths of to-morrow. Error is inevitable, but +even error opens out new ways. In the beautiful idea of Brezina, the +Czech poet, all ideal aims are floating islands that recede as we +approach them. The highest aim is in effort itself, in the life which +effort intensifies. Verhaeren's optimism here guards his marches against +banality, for he is sufficient of a mystic to know that it is the +unknowable and the inaccessible that lend all things their impenetrable +beauty. But the knowledge of this must not scare enthusiasm away: + + Partons quand même, avec notre âme inassouvie, + Puisque la force et que la vie + Sont au delà des vérités et des erreurs.[13] + +What if a few last things remain eternally inscrutable: 'plutôt que d'en +peupler les coins par des chimères, nous préférons ne point savoir.'[14] +Rather a world without gods than one with false gods, rather incomplete +knowledge than false knowledge. + +Here, where the heroes of science reach the limits of what is possible +to them, a new group must stand by their side and help them in their +work. These are the poets, who preach faith where knowledge ends. They +must find the synthesis between science and religion, between the +earthly and the divine, the new synthesis--_religious confidence in +science_. Their optimism must force their fellow-men to have faith in +science, as in earlier days they had faith in gods: though proofs fail +them, they must demand from this new religion what the early fathers +demanded for the old religion. And he himself, Verhaeren, he who +once--here again a bitter 'no' is turned into an exulting 'yes'--said in +his beginnings + + Toute science enferme au fond d'elle le doute, + Comme une mère enceinte étreint un enfant mort,[15] + +he himself is to-day the first of confident enthusiasts. Where +individual minds are still at war-- + + 'Oh! ces luttes là -haut entre ces dieux humains![16]-- + +where their knowledge has not yet found a bridge, poets must with +enthusiasm and confidence surmise a path. They must link law with +perception; and in the same measure as the scientists have by knowledge +fed their enthusiasm, they in their turn must feed knowledge by their +confidence. If they have no proofs of actualities, their faith dowers +them with the confidence to say, 'nous croyons déjà ce que les autres +sauront.'[17] They scent and surmise new things before they are born; +they trust hypotheses before they are proved. Already, + + Pendant que disputent et s'embrouillent encor, + À coups de textes morts + Et de dogmes, les sages,[18] + +they hear the hovering wings of the new truth. They already believe in +what later generations will know; they derive vital joy from what their +descendants will be the first to possess. They doubt in nothing; not +that man will conquer the air, quell disease, make life cheerful and +easier; they do not despair in progress, and in their ecstasy they leap +over all obstacles. 'Le cri de Faust n'est plus le nôtre';[19] the +question as to 'yes' and 'no' has long since been joyfully answered in +the affirmative, exults the poet; we no longer hesitate between the +possibility and the impossibility of knowledge, we believe in it, and +faith and confidence is already the highest knowledge of life. In this +optimism of poets other discoverers of knowledge must now fulfil their +growth, from these dreams they must derive strength for their activity; +all men must in this way complete one another, that it may be possible +for them to beleaguer darkness, perfect the conquest of God, and + + Emprisonner quand même, un jour, l'éternité, + Dans le gel blanc d'une immobile vérité.[20] + +For this new truth, the Man-God whom they are to discover, poets and +scholars are the new saints; and his servants are all those whose brows +are fiery with the fever of work, whose hands are scorched with +experiments, whose nerves are strained by constant effort, whose eyes +are fatigued by books. To all of these Verhaeren's hymn is addressed: + + Qu'ils soient sacrés par les foules, ces hommes + Qui scrutèrent les faits pour en tirer les lois.[21] + +But still farther reaches Verhaeren's enthusiasm for those who help in +the new work, for the 'saccageurs d'infini.'[22] Not only the thinker +and the poet extend the horizon of life, but each one also who creates +and is in any way at work. Only the man who creates is really alive and +really a man--'seul existe qui crée.'[23] And so his hymn is likewise +addressed to those who toil with their hands, to those who, without +knowing the aim, toil stolidly day by day in mines and fields; for they +too build the face of the earth, create mountains where there were none, +rear lights by the sea's marge, construct machines and the huge +telescopes that pry on the heavens: all of them forge the tools of +knowledge and prepare the new era. Merchants who send across the ocean +ships that spin threads from farthest shore to shore, they too weave the +net of the great unity; traders who spread gold, who quicken the +circulation of the world's blood, they too co-operate in the battle +waged with the dark. It is their league and union which, first of all, +gives humanity its great strength; they all prepare the hour, the +moment, which must inevitably come. + + Il viendra l'instant, où tant d'efforts savants et ingénus, + Tant de génie et de cerveaux tendus vers l'inconnu, + Quand même, auront bâti sur des bases profondes + Et jaillissant au ciel, la synthèse du monde![24] + +Here in fiery dawns glimmer the days of the future. Tens of thousands +will struggle, will prepare, until at last the one man comes who shall +lay the last stone of the edifice, 'le tranquille rebelle,'[25] the +Christ of this new religion. + + C'est que celui qu'on attendait n'est point venu, + Celui que la nature entière + Suscitera un jour, âme et rose trémière, + Sous les soleils puissants non encore connus; + C'est que la race ardente et fine, + Dont il sera la fleur, + N'a point multiplié ses milliers de racines + Jusqu'au tréfonds des profondeurs.[26] + +For here in Verhaeren's work this vision arises fervent and glowing. +Incessantly man proceeds on the path of his destiny. Once his whole +world was replete with divinity, 'jadis tout l'inconnu était peuplé de +dieux';[27] then one single God took right and might into His hand; but +now, by means of his strength and passion, man has wrested, year by +year, one secret after the other from this Unknown Power. More and more +he has conquered chance by laws, faith by knowledge, fear by safety; +more and more the power of the gods glides insensibly into his hands, +more and more he determines his own life; and the process will continue +till he is in every respect the captain of his fate; he is less and less +subject to laws he has not himself established; more and more Nature's +slave becomes her lord. + + Races, régnez: puisque par vous la volonté du sort + Devient de plus en plus la volonté humaine.[28] + +Gods will become men; exterior fate will return into their bosom; the +saints will henceforth be only their brothers; and Paradise will be the +earth itself. Most beautifully Verhaeren has expressed this idea in one +of his latest books,[29] in the symbol of Adam and Eve. Eve, expelled +from the Garden of Eden, one day finds its doors open again. But she +does not re-enter it, for her highest joy, her Paradise, is now in +activity and the pleasure of the earth. Zest in existence, in life, joy +of the earth, has never been more strongly and burningly exalted than in +this symbol; never has the hymn of humanity been sung with greater +fervour than by this poet--perhaps because he had denied life more +wildly and more obstinately than any other. Here all contrasts sing +together in a harmony without a flaw; the last enmity between man and +Nature here becomes the ecstatic feeling of man's godhead. + +And strange to say, here the circle of life returns to itself. The books +of the poet's old age return to the days of his youth, to the school +benches in Ghent where Maeterlinck also sat, the other great Fleming. +Both, who lost themselves there, have found themselves again on the +heights of life in their conception of the world, for Maeterlinck's +highest teaching also (in his book _Wisdom and Destiny_) is, that all +fate is locked up in man himself, that it is man's highest evolution, +his highest duty, to conquer fate, all that lies outside him, God. This +profound thought, which has thus twice in our days blossomed forth from +Flemish soil, has been achieved on different paths. Maeterlinck has +found it by listening to the mysticism of silence, Verhaeren by +listening to the noise of life. He has found his new God not in the +darkness of dreams but in the light of streets, in all places where men +bestir themselves, and where from heavy hours the trembling flower of +joy is born. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] 'La Conquête' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[2] 'À la Gloire du Vent' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[3] 'L'Eau' (_Les Visages de la Vie_). + +[4] 'Au Bord du Quai' (_Ibid._) + +[5] 'La Conquête' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_) + +[6] 'Les Cultes' (_Ibid._) + +[7] 'Les Villes' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[8] 'La Ferreur' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[9] 'Vers le Futur' (_Les Villes Tentaculaires_). + +[10] 'La Conquête' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[11] 'Vers le Futur' (_Les Villes Tentaculaires_). + +[12] 'La Recherche' (_Ibid._). + +[13] 'L'Erreur' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[14] 'La Ferveur' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[15] 'Méditation' (_Les Moines_). + +[16] 'Les Penseurs' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[17] 'La Science' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[18] 'L'Action' (_Les Visages de la Vie_). + +[19] 'La Science' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[20] 'Les Penseurs' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[21] 'La Science' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[22] 'Les Penseurs' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[23] 'La Mort' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[24] 'La Recherche' (_Les Villes Tentaculaires_). + +[25] 'L'Attente' (_Les Visages de la Vie_). + +[26] 'L'Attente' (_Les Visages de la Vie_). + +[27] 'La Folie' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[28] (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[29] _Les Rythmes Souverains._ + + + + +THE ETHICS OF FERVOUR + + La vie est à monter et non pas à descendre. + É.V., 'Les Rêves,' + + Il faut admirer tout pour s'exalter soi-même + Et se dresser plus haut que ceux qui out vécu. + É.V., 'La Vie.' + +The metaphysical ideal crystallised by Verhaeren from his contemplation +of life, which was at first wildly passionate, but then more and more +synoptical and logical, has been called unity. He has himself recently, +in answer to a question submitted to various men of letters, confirmed +this conception as part of his programme. 'It seems to me,' he says, +'that poetry is bound ere long to be merged in a very clear Pantheism. +More and more the unity of the world is admitted by upright and healthy +minds. That old dualism between the soul and the body, between God and +the universe, is becoming effaced. Man is a fragment of the architecture +of the world. He understands and is conscious of the entity of which he +is a part.... He feels that he is encompassed and dominated, while at +the same time he himself encompasses and dominates. By reason of his own +miracles he is becoming, in some sort, that personal God that his +ancestors believed in. Now I ask, is it possible that lyric exaltation +should long remain indifferent to such an unchaining of human power, +should hesitate to celebrate such a vast spectacle of grandeur? The poet +of to-day has only to surrender himself to what he sees, hears, +imagines, conjectures, for works to be born of his heart and brain that +are young, vibrating, and new.'[1] But he who would build up the whole +image must not make a halt at this stage of knowledge: over against the +logical ordering of external things he must set another of inward +things; against the knowledge of life he must set the feeling of life. +He must set up an ethical ideal as well as a metaphysical ideal, a +commandment of life corresponding to his law of life. + +But great poets never discover a standard of life, a moral precept, +which is not a reflex of the law of their own inner nature. Many +possibilities of contemplation are open to the thinker, to the quiet +observer; to the poet however, to the lyrist, only a poetic philosophy +of life is possible, a contemplation lyrically exalted. Whereas the +philosopher can attain the knowledge of unity by measurement and +calculation, by a perception and calm computation of forces, a poet can +discover the evolution of things in the direction of harmony and unity +only in his ecstasy, only in an exalted state of enthusiasm. He will +perforce recognise a commandment for the whole world in his own +enthusiasm, and in his lyric ecstasy a moral demand of life. 'Toute la +vie est dans l'essor,' for the poet all life is in ecstasy. And just as +Verhaeren never described things in a state of rest, so too his +comprehension of the universe is never conceivable except in the +permanently exalted state of the unrest of joy and motion. + +Verhaeren's relationship to the world around him was ever passionate. He +has always approached things feverishly, as a lover approaches the woman +he desires. Only what he has won by fighting has the value to him of a +possession. Things do not belong to us as long as we pass them by, as +long as we only look at them with unfeeling and cold eyes as though they +were a scene in a play, a walking picture. To feel the connection +between them and us, between the world and the poet, between man and +man, to pass over from the purely contemplative state to the assessment +of values, we must enter into some personal relationship of sympathy or +antipathy. Verhaeren's first crisis had taught him that negation is +sterile, and his recovery had then shown him that only assent, +acceptance, affection, and enthusiasm can place us in a real +relationship with things. + + Pour vivre clair, ferme et juste, + Avec mon cÅ“ur, j'admire tout + Ce qui vibre, travaille et bout + Dans la tendresse humaine et sur la terre auguste.[2] + +A thing only belongs to us when it is felt--not so much for us +personally--as beautiful, necessary, and vivid: only when we have said +'yes' to it. _And therefore our whole evolution can only be to admire as +much as possible, to understand as much as possible, to let our feeling +have intercourse with as many things as possible_. To contemplate is too +little; to understand is too little. Only when we have confirmed a thing +from its very roots, confirmed it as necessary, does it really belong to +us. 'II faut aimer pour découvrir avec génie.' And so our whole effort +must be to overcome what is negative in ourselves, to reject nothing, to +kill the critical spirit in ourselves, to strengthen what is positive in +us, to assent as much as possible. Here again Verhaeren is in agreement +with Nietzsche's last ideals: 'Warding things off, keeping things down, +is a waste of energy, a squandering of strength on negative +purposes.'[3] Criticism is sterile. Verhaeren is here as ever a +relativist of values, for he knows that they are incessantly occupied in +a process of transformation in favour of their highest value, and +therefore he holds enthusiasm (the symbol of over-estimation) to be more +important, in the sense of a higher justice, than what is apparently +absolute justice itself. + +For this is the essential: if in our estimation we often over-estimate +things which in any case would preserve their inner value independently +of our 'yes' or 'no,' that is not so great a danger as it is a profit +that our own souls should grow by means of our admiration. 'Admirer, +c'est se grandir.'[4] For if we admire more, and more intensively, than +others, we shall ourselves grow richer than those timid ones who content +themselves with choice morsels of life instead of grasping life in its +entirety, who restrict themselves because they only place themselves in +relationship with a part of the world and not with the whole cosmos. The +more a man admires, the more he possesses: + + Il faut admirer tout pour s'exalter soi-même + Et se dresser plus haut que ceux qui out vécu + De coupables souffrances et de désirs vaincus.[5] + +For admiration means, in the highest sense, subordinating oneself to +other things. _The more a man suppresses his own personal pride, the +higher he stands in the moral sense_. For to accentuate oneself and to +deny what is not oneself needs less strength than to suppress oneself +and to surrender oneself in admiration to all else. Here Verhaeren sees +the rise of a new ethical problem. A whole ladder of values is revealed +to him in the moral standard of freedom and frankness with which a man +can meet his fellows in his admiration; a ladder on whose topmost rung +the man stands who rejects nothing whatever, who meets every +manifestation of life with ecstasy. To be able to admire more means to +grow more oneself: + + Oh! vivre et vivre et se sentir meilleur + À mesure que bout plus fervemment le cÅ“ur; + Vivre plus clair, dès qu'on marche en conquête; + Vivre plus haut encor, dès que le sort s'entête + À dessécher la force et l'audace des bras.[6] + +And so strong must this restless enthusiasm grow, this incessant +enthusiasm for things, that the height of the ascent suddenly surprises +one with a rapt feeling of dizziness. The lyrical commandment of the +highest ecstasy is here an ethical standard: + + Il faut en tes élans te dépasser sans cesse, + Être ton propre étonnement.[7] + +In this idea of restless enthusiasm, the principles of which have also +been expounded by Verhaeren in his essay _Cosmic Enthusiasm_ +(_Insel-Almanach,_ 1913), he has established a poetic equivalent to his +other great impulse of humanity, set an ethical ideal by the side of the +metaphysical ideal. For if of old the yearning for knowledge, that +superb struggle for the conquest of the unknown, was the only thing that +placed man in an eternally living relationship to the new things, what +is possibly a still more valuable instinct is discovered in this +incessantly intensified ecstatic admiration. Admiring is more than +estimating and knowing. To surrender oneself in love to all things is +higher than the curiosity to know everything. 'Tout affronter vaut mieux +que tout comprendre.'[8] For in all knowledge there is still a residue +of selfishness, of the pride of personal acquisition, while admiration +of things contains nothing but humility--that great humility, however, +which is an infinite enrichment of life, because it signifies a +dissolution in the all. Whereas knowledge is brought to a sudden +standstill before many things and finds the road blocked with darkness, +in admiration, in ecstasy, there is no limit set to the ego. _Though +many values lock themselves up from knowledge, none denies itself wholly +to admiration_. Even the smallest thing becomes great when it is +penetrated with love, and the greater we let things grow--the more we +enrich the substance of our own life--the more infinite we make our ego. +It is the highest ethical task of a great man to find the highest value +in every phenomenon, and to free this value from the thick and often +stifling rind of antipathy and strangeness. Not to let oneself be +repelled by resistance is the perfection of a noble enthusiasm. If +anything whatsoever is void of beauty, it will have a power which by its +energy expresses beauty. If anything seems strange and ugly in the +traditional sense, it will set the wonderful task of finding out the new +sense in which it is beautiful. _And to have found this new beauty in +the new things was the active greatness of the poetic work, the +greatness which was unconscious and now becomes conscious, which was +knowledge and now becomes law_. While all others considered our great +cities frightful and ugly, Verhaeren praised their magnificence; while +all others abhorred science as an obstacle to poetry, Verhaeren +celebrated it as the purest form of life. For he knows that everything +changes, that 'ce qui fut hier le but est l'obstacle demain,'[9] and +_vice versa_ that the obstacle of to-day may perhaps be the goal of the +next generation. He had already recognised in his poetry what the +architectural movement in the great cities in the last few years has +realised, that huge shops, as emporia of intellectual life, as new +centres of force, provide tasks for art as stupendous as the cathedrals +of old; that in the reek and smoke of teeming cities new tones of colour +were waiting for painters, new problems for philosophers; that all that +in our own time looms bulky and unseemly will to the next generation be +well-proportioned and have to be called beautiful. Verhaeren's +enthusiasm for what is new overcomes the resistance of reverence for +tradition. Verhaeren has rendered signal service to our time by being +the first to recognise and proclaim the great impressionists and all +innovators in art and poetry. For to reject nothing new, to be hostile +to nothing the world can offer, this only is what he understands by +knowing the world as it is and truly loving it. His ladder of values +ends on high in this absolute ideal of admiration of the whole world, +not only of that which is but of that which shall be, of the identity of +every ego with the time and its forms: + + L'homme n'est suprême et clair que si sa volonté + Est d'être lui en même temps qu'il est monde. + +And since this boundless admiration turns selfishness to +dust--selfishness, the eternal obstacle to all purely human +relations--since, in a word, it produces a kind of brotherly +relationship to all things, it also opens out the possibility of +levelling the relationship between man and man. The book _La Multiple +Splendeur_, which has given definite expression to these ethical ideas, +was originally intended to be called _Admirez-vous les Uns les Autres_. +In this book self-surrender is considered as the highest ideal, the gift +of oneself to the whole world, the distribution of oneself among all +people. No longer, as in the earlier books, are energy, strength, and +conquest by strength, the quelling of resistance, the ultimate sense of +life, but goodness, scattering oneself broadcast, becoming the all by +surrender to the all. Greatness in this new sense can only arise by +ecstatic admiration. 'Il faut aimer pour découvrir avec génie.' +Admiration and love are the strongest forces of the world. Love will be +the highest form of the new relations--it will regulate all earthly +relationships; love shall be the social levelling. + + L'amour dont la puissance encore est inconnue, + Dans sa profondeur douce et sa charité nue, + Ira porter la joie égale aux résignés; + Les sacs ventrus de l'or seront saignés + Un soir d'ardente et large équité rouge; + Disparaîtront palais, banques, comptoirs et bouges; + Tout sera simple et clair, quand l'orgueil sera mort, + Quand l'homme, au lieu de croire à l'égoïste effort, + Qui s'éterniserait, en une âme immortelle, + Dispensera vers tous sa vie accidentelle; + Des paroles, qu'aucun livre ne fait prévoir, + Débrouilleront ce qui paraît complexe et noir; + Le faible aura sa part dans l'existence entière, + Il aimera son sort--et la matière + Confessera peut-être, alors, ce qui fut Dieu.[10] + +And in still greater, still more monumental expression, in stone tables +of the law as it were, Verhaeren has compressed his new moral idea in a +single poem: + + Si nous nous admirons vraiment les uns les autres, + Du fond même de notre ardeur et notre foi, + Vous les penseurs, vous les savants, vous les apôtres, + Pour les temps qui viendront vous extrairez la loi. + + Nous apportons, ivres du monde et de nous-mêmes, + Des cÅ“urs d'hommes nouveaux dans le vieil univers. + Les Dieux sont loin et leur louange et leur blasphème; + Notre force est en nous et nous avons souffert. + + Nous admirons nos mains, nos yeux et nos pensées, + Même notre douleur qui devient notre orgueil; + Toute recherche est fermement organisée + Pour fouiller l'inconnu dont nous cassons le seuil. + + S'il est encor là -bas des caves de mystère + Où tout flambeau s'éteint ou recule effaré, + Plutôt que d'en peupler les coins par des chimères + Nous préférons ne point savoir que nous leurrer. + + Un infini plus sain nous cerne et nous pénètre; + Notre raison monte plus haut; notre cÅ“ur bout; + Et nous nous exaltons si bellement des êtres + Que nous changeons le sens que nous avons de tout. + + Cerveau, tu règnes seul sur nos actes lucides; + Aimer, c'est asservir; admirer, se grandir; + O tel profond vitrail, dans l'ombre des absides, + Qui reflète la vie et la fait resplendir! + + Aubes, matins, midis et soirs, toute lumière + Est aussitôt muée en or et en beauté, + Il exalte l'espace et le ciel et la terre + Et transforme le monde à travers sa clarté.[11] + +_This sensation of recognising oneself in all things by enthusiasm_, of +living with everything that has existence and a visible form, is +pantheism, is a Teutonic conception of the universe. But in Verhaeren +pantheism finds its very last intensification. Identity is to him not +only cerebral knowledge, but experience; identity is not the sensation +of being similar to things in body and soul, but an indissoluble unity. +Whosoever admires a thing so wholly that he goes down to the roots of +his feeling, that he dissolves and denies himself in order to be wholly +this other thing, is at this moment of ecstasy identical with it. +Ecstasy is no longer what it means in the Greek derivation, the fact of +stepping out of oneself, of losing oneself; it signifies, in addition +to that, the finding of oneself in the other thing. And with this +Verhaeren's cosmic conception goes beyond pantheism. He not only senses +things as though he were their brother; not only does he sense himself +in them, he himself lives them. Not only does he feel his blood pouring +into other beings, he no longer feels any blood of his own at all; he +only feels this strange, glowing sap of the world in his veins. I know +of no more fiery eruption than those moments of Verhaeren when he is no +longer able to distinguish the world from his ego, this unique cosmic +intoxication: + + Je ne distingue plus le monde de moi-même, + Je suis l'ample feuillage et les rameaux flottants, + Je suis le sol dont je foule les cailloux pâles + Et l'herbe des fossés où soudain je m'affale + Ivre et fervent, hagard, heureux et sanglotant.[12] + +All the forms of the elements are a personal experience to him: +'J'existe en tout ce qui m'entoure et me pénètre.'[13] All that has +happened becomes to him a manifestation of his own body; he feels all +cosmic happenings as personal experiences: + + Oh! les rythmes fougueux de la nature entière + Et les sentir et les darder à travers soi! + Vivre les mouvements répandus dans les bois, + Le sol, les vents, la mer et les tonnerres; + Vouloir qu'en son cerveau tressaille l'univers.[14] + +Here the billows of enthusiasm dash higher and higher, this call to +union by enthusiasm grows to an ever more passionate command: + + Exaltez-vous encore et comprenez-vous mieux, + Reconnaissez-vous donc et magnifiez-vous + Dans l'ample et myriadaire splendeur des choses![15] + +For if men hitherto have arrived at no clear and harmonious relationship +with one another, that was because, so Verhaeren thinks, they had not +admiration sufficient, because they were too suspicious of one another, +because they had too little faith. 'Magnifiez-vous donc et +comprenez-vous mieux!'[16] he calls out to them, 'admirez-vous les uns +les autres!' and here, in the last phase of his knowledge, he is again +in agreement with the great American, who, in his poem _Starting from +Paumanok_, preaches: + + I say no man has ever yet been half devout enough, + None has ever yet adored or worshipped half enough, + None has begun to think how divine he himself is, and + how certain the future is. + +For the highest pleasure is only in this highest ecstasy. And therefore +these ideals of Verhaeren are not cold, sober commandments, but a +passionate hymn. + + Aimer avec ferveur soi-même en tous les autres + Qui s'exaltent de même en de mêmes combats + Vers le même avenir dont on entend le pas; + Aimer leur cÅ“ur et leur cerveau pareils aux vôtres + Parce qu'ils ont souffert, en des jours noirs et fous, + Même angoisse, même affre et même deuil que vous. + + Et s'énivrer si fort de l'humaine bataille + --Pâle et flottant reflet des monstrueux assauts + Ou des groupements d'or des étoiles, là -haut-- + Qu'on vit en tout ce qui agit, lutte ou tressaille + Et qu'on accepte avidement, le cÅ“ur ouvert, + L'âpre et terrible loi qui régit l'univers.[17] + +_To raise these mystic moments of ecstasy, these seconds of identity, +which every one in his life experiences in quite rare and strange +moments, to permanency, to a constant, unconquerable feeling of +life--this is Verhaeren's highest aim_. His cosmic conception is +concentrated in this supreme ideal of an incessantly felt identity of +the ego with its environment, of an identity ever fired anew by passion. + +For not till nothing more is contemplation and everything is experience, +not till this vast enrichment is accomplished, does life cease to be +vegetative, indifferent, and somnolent, not till then does it turn to +pure delight. Not to feel individual feelings of pleasure, but to feel +life itself in all its forms as supreme pleasure, is the last goal of +Verhaeren's art. What he says of Juliers, the hero of Flanders, 'son +existence était sa volupté,'[18] _the fact of life itself was his +pleasure_, is also his own highest longing. He does not want life that; +he may fill out the span that is allotted to every mortal, but that he +may consciously enjoy, and to the full, every minute of life as a +delight and as; happiness. And in such a moment of ecstasy he says, + + Il me semble jusqu'à ce jour n'avoir vécu + Que pour mourir et non pour vivre,[19] + +lines that seem to me unforgettable, as the highest ecstasy of vitality. + +And, wonderful to say, here too the circle is closed, here too the end +of Verhaeren's know-ledge--as we have seen in so many things with +him--is a return to the beginning. Here too there is nothing save an +inherited instinct which has become a rapt consciousness. His first book +and his last ones, _Les Flamandes_, as well as _Les Rythmes Souverains_ +and _Les Blés Mouvants,_ celebrate life--the first, it is true, only +life's outer form, the dull enjoyment of the senses: the last books, +however, celebrate the conscious, intensified, sublimated feeling of +life. Verhaeren's whole evolution--here again in harmony with the great +poets of our nation, with Nietzsche and Dehmel--is not suppression, but +a conscious intensification of original instincts. Just as in--his first +books he described his native province, and again in his last, save that +now the land is bounded by the horizons of the whole world, here again +the feeling of life returns as the sense of life, but it is now enriched +with all the knowledge he has acquired, with all the victories he has +won. Passion, which was in his first book a chaotic revolt, has here +become a law; the instinctive sensation of pleasure in health has been +transformed into a deliberate and conscious pleasure in life and in all +its forms. Now again Verhaeren feels the great pride of a strong man: + + Je marche avec l'orgueil d'aimer l'air et la terre, + D'être immense et d'être fou + Et de mêler le monde et tout + À cet enivrement de vie élémentaire.[20] + +The health of the strong race he once celebrated in the lads and lasses +of his native province, he now sings in himself. And so strong is the +identity between his ego and the world that he, desiring to sing the +beauty of the whole world, is now compelled to include himself and to +celebrate his own body. He who of old hated his body as a prison out of +which he could not escape to flee from himself, he who wished to 'spit +himself out,' now fits into the hymn of the world a stanza in +celebration of his own ego: + + J'aime mes yeux, mes bras, mes mains, ma chair, + mon torse + Et mes cheveux amples et blonds, + Et je voudrais, par mes poumons, + Boire l'espace entier pour en gonfler ma force.[21] + +The feeling of identity has given him absolute identity in regard to +himself. + +It is not in vanity that he celebrates himself, but in gratitude. For +the body is to him only a means of sensing the beauty, power, and +beneficence of the world, is to him a wonderful possibility of enjoying +things by strength in strong passion. And wonderful are these thanks of +an ageing man to his eyes and ears and chest for still permitting him to +feel earth's beauty with all the fervour of old: + + Soyez remerciés, mes yeux, + D'être restés si clairs, sous mon front déjà vieux, + Pour voir au loin bouger et vibrer la lumière; + Et vous, mes mains, de tressaillir dans le soleil; + Et vous, mes doigts, de vous dorer aux fruits vermeils + Pendus au long du mur, près des roses trémières. + + Soyez remercié, mon corps, + D'être ferme, rapide, et frémissant encor + Au toucher des vents prompts ou des brises profondes; + Et vous, mon torse clair et mes larges poumons, + De respirer au long des mers ou sur les monts, + L'air radieux et vif qui baigne et mord les mondes.[22] + +Thus, too, he now celebrates all things to which he is related--his +body; the race and the ancestors to whom he owes his being; the country +fields that have given him youth; the cities that have given him his +vast outlook: he celebrates Europe and America, the past and the future. +_And just as he feels himself to be strong and healthy, so too his +feeling conceives of the whole world as healthy and great_. That is the +incomparable and, probably, the unparalleled thing in Verhaeren's +verses, what makes him so exceedingly dear to many as to me, that here +cheerfulness, worldly pleasure, joy, and ecstasy are sensed not only +intellectually as pride, but that this pleasure is felt positively _in +the body_, with all the fibres of the blood, with all the muscles and +nerves of the man. His stanzas are really, as Bazalgette so beautifully +says, 'une décharge d'électricité humaine,'[23] a discharge of human, of +physical electricity. Joy here becomes a physical excess, an +intoxication, a superabundance without parallel: + + Nous apportons, ivres du monde et de nous-mêmes, + Des cÅ“urs d'hommes nouveaux dans le vieil univers.[24] + +There is now no disharmony between the individual poems; they are one +single bubbling up of enthusiasm, 'un enivrement de soi-même'; over the +many convulsive, quivering, irregular ecstasies of old now flames the +ecstasy of the whole feeling of life. This ecstasy stands in our days +like a figure proud, strong, and erect, exultingly flourishing the torch +of passion aloft to greet the future, 'vers la joie'! + +Here ends Verhaeren's ethic work. And I believe that no exaltation, no +knowledge can again change this last pure form, or make it still more +beautiful. A vast expenditure of force, the effort of one of our +strongest and most incomparable men, has here reached its goal. Once +force seemed to him to be the strength of the world; now, however, in +his purer knowledge, he sees it in goodness, in admiration, in that +force which, with the same intensity as turned it outwards of old, is +now directed inwards; which no longer constrains to conquest, but to +self-surrender, to a boundless humility. Over the immense savagery and +apparent chaos of the first works this knowledge now arches this rainbow +of reconciliation, over _Les Forcés Tumultueuses_ shines _La Multiple +Splendeur_. And to himself may be applied the words he dedicated to his +hymn of all humanity--'La joie et la bonté sont les fleurs de sa +force.'[25] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] G. Le Cardonnel et Ch. Vellay, _La Littérature Contemporaine._ + +[2] 'Autour de ma Maison' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[3] _Ecce Homo!_. + +[4] 'La Ferveur' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[5] 'La Vie' (_Ibid._). + +[6] 'L'Action' (_Les Visages de la Vie_). + +[7] 'L'Impossible' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[8] 'Les Rêves' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[9] 'L'Impossible' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[10] 'Un Soir' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[11] 'La Ferveur' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[12] 'Autour de ma Maison' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[13] 'La Joie' (_Ibid_.). + +[14] 'L'En-avant' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[15] 'La Louange du Corps Humain' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[16] _Ibid. (Ibid.)_ + +[17] 'La Vie' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[18] 'Guillaume de Juliers' (_Les Héros_). + +[19] 'Un Matin' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[20] 'Un Matin' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[21] _Ibid. (Ibid.)_. + +[22] 'La Joie' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[23] 'Léon Bazalgette', _Émile Verhaeren_. + +[24] 'La Ferveur' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[25] 'Les Mages' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + + + + +LOVE + + Ceux qui vivent d'amour vivent d'éternité. + E.V., _Les Heures d'après-midi._ + + +Filled with contemporary spirit as Verhaeren's work is, there is one +point in which it appears to stray from our epoch, to be remote from the +artistic preoccupations of other poets. Verhaeren's poetry is almost +entirely free from eroticism. The problem of love is with him far from +being, as it is with most poets, the feeling at the root of all +feelings; it is hardly ever a motive force in his work; it remains a +little arabesque delicately curved above his massive architecture. +Verhaeren's enthusiasms spring from other sources. Love is for him +almost without a sexual shade of meaning, perfectly identical with +enthusiasm, self-surrender, ecstasy; and the difference between the +sexes does not seem to be an essential, but only an incidental form +among the thousandfold militant forms of life. The love of woman, sexual +necessity, is scarcely a force greater than any other in the circle of +forces, never the most important or actually the root-force, as it is +(for instance) to Dehmel, who derives the consciousness of all great +cosmic phases of knowledge from the experience of love. Verhaeren's +horizons are illuminated, not by the flame of the erotic, but by the +passionate fire of purely intellectual impulses. His first books, those +lyric volumes which are nearly always a poet's confessions of love, were +devoted to landscapes and then to social phenomena, to monks, and to men +who toil with their hands. The strength of his drama pulses in conflicts +exclusively masculine. Thus his work, already vastly removed from that +of the other lyrists of our time, is seen to be still more isolated. To +Verhaeren love is only a single page, not the first and not the last, in +the book of the world: this poet has lavished too much glowing passion +and ecstatic feeling on all individual things and the universe for the +cry of the desire of woman to ring higher than all other voices. + +This lack of accentuation of eroticism in Verhaeren's work does not by +any means strike me as a weakness, a missing nerve in his artistic +organism. It may read like a paradox, but it must be said: just this +apparent artistic deficiency indicates personal strength. Verhaeren's +masculinity is so pronounced and strong that woman could never become +the root-problem of his passion, or shake him in the foundations of his +fate. To a really strong man, love, sexual love, is a matter of course; +a sterling man does not feel it as an obstacle and not as a vital +conflict, but as a necessity, like nourishment, air, and liberty. But a +thing that is a matter of course is never conceived by an artist as a +problem. In his youth Verhaeren was never perplexed by love, for the +simple reason that he did not attach sufficient importance to it, +because his poetic interests were in the first place directed to a +mightier possession, a philosophy of life. A sterling man, as Verhaeren +conceives him, does not spend his strength in sexual love. For such a +man the metaphysical instinct, the longing for knowledge, the need of +finding his inner statics in the cosmos, goes before love. 'Eve voulait +aimer, Adam voulait connaître.'[1] Only to woman is love the sense pf +life; to man, in Verhaeren's idea, the sense of life is knowledge. He +expressed this sound idea still more clearly in an early poem: + + Les forts montent la vie ainsi qu'un escalier, + Sans voir d'abord que les femmes sur leurs passages + Tendent vers eux leurs seins, leurs fronts et leur visages.[2] + +Paying no heed to the seductions of love, the strong men, the really +great, ascend to the skies, to spiritual knowledge; they gather the +fruits of stars and comets; and then, only then, when they are +returning, tired by their lonely wandering, do they observe women, and +lay down in their hands the knowledge of the great worlds. _Not in the +beginning, in the vehement days of youth, but only when manhood is +established, only in the time of inner maturity, can woman become a +great experience for Verhaeren_. He must first of all have acquired a +firm footing, must know his place in the world, before he can yield +himself up to love. It is strange that the sonnet I have quoted should +have been written in youth, because, like a presentiment, it relates the +fate of his own life in advance. For the images of women never stopped +his path nor turned him aside from it; love, if I may say so, only +occupied his senses and never absorbed his soul. Not till later, till +the years when the crisis was undermining his body, when his nerves were +giving way under the terrible strain, when solitude reared itself before +his face like an inseparable foe, did a woman enter his life. Then, and +not till then, did love and marriage--the personal symbol of eternal, +exterior order--give him inward rest. And to this woman the only +love-poems he ever wrote are addressed. In Verhaeren's work, which is +graded like a trilogy--in this symphony that is often brutal--there is a +quiet, soft andante, a trilogy in the trilogy, one of love. From the +point of view of art, these three books, _Les Heures Claires, Les Heures +d'Après-midi,_ and _Les Heures du Soir_, are not less in value than his +great works, but they are more gentle. From this savage and passionate +man one might have expected visionary, seething ecstasies, a tempestuous +discharge of erotic feeling; but these books are a wonderful +disappointment. They are not spoken to the crowd, but to one woman only, +and for that reason they are not spoken loudly, but with a voice +subdued. Religious consciousness--for with Verhaeren all that is poetic +is religious in a new sense--finds a new form here. _Here Verhaeren does +not preach, he prays_. These little pages are the privacy of his +personal life, the confession of a passion which is great indeed, but +veiled as it were with a delicate shame. 'Oh! la tendresse des forts!' +is Bazalgette's inspired comment. And in truth, it is impossible to +imagine anything more touching than the sight of this mighty fighter +here lowering his resonant voice to the soft breathings of devotion. +These verses are quite simple, spoken low, as though wild and too +passionate words might imperil so noble a feeling, as though a strong +man, a brutal man, who is afraid of hurting a delicate woman with a +touch accustomed to bronze, should lay his hand on hers only softly, +most cautiously. + +How beautiful these poems are! When you read them, they take you softly +by the hand and lead you into a garden. Here you see no more the murky +horizon of the city, the workshops; you do not hear the din of streets, +nor that resonant rhythm that raged along in cataract on cataract; you +hear a gentle music as of a playing fountain. Passion does not project +you here to the great ecstasies of humanity and the sky; it has no will +to make you wild and fervid; it soothes you to tenderness and devotion. +The strident voice has grown soft, these colours are of transparent +crystal, this song seems to express the vast silence from which those +great passions drew their force. But these poems are not artificial. +They too are of one woof with the elements of Nature; but not with the +great, wild, and heart-moving world, not with the fiery sky, not with +thunder and tempests: it is only a garden that you surmise here, a +peaceful cottage, with birds singing about it, where there are +sweet-scented flowers and silence hanging between trees in blossom. The +adventures are insignificant in feature. You breathe the poetry of +everyday life, but not that of open and wildly surging roads--only the +poetry of closed walls, softly spoken dialogues about little things, the +tenderest secrets of home. These are the experiences of personal +existence, this is the ordinary day between the great ecstasies. The +lamp burns softly in the room, the silence is full of wonderful +tenderness: + + Et l'on se dit les simples choses: + Le fruit qu'on a cueilli dans le jardin; + La fleur qui s'est ouverte, + D'entre les mousses vertes, + Et la pensée éclose, en des émois soudains, + Au souvenir d'un mot de tendresse fanée + Surpris au fond d'un vieux tiroir, + Sur un billet de l'autre année.[3] + +Here you have the deepest feeling, thanks and devotion, not in ecstasy +to God and the world, but addressed to one single being. For Verhaeren +is one who is ever receiving gifts, who always feels that he is being +heaped with favours, who has always to give thanks for life and all its +miracles. Without measure, with that zest, with that incessantly renewed +joy which is the deepest secret of his art, he here again and again +expresses love and gratitude. As Orpheus rises to Euridice from the +nether world, here the sick lover ascends to the lady who has saved him +from the dark. And again and again he thanks her for the good hours of +quietness; again and again he reminds her of their first meeting, of the +sunny happiness of these present days: + + Avec mes sens, avec mon cÅ“ur et mon cerveau, + Avec mon être entier tendu comme un flambeau + Vers ta bonté et vers ta charité, + Je t'aime et te louange et je te remercie + D'être venue, un jour, si simplement, + Par les chemins du dévouement, + Prendre en tes mains bienfaisantes, ma vie.[4] + +These verses are genuflexions, folded hands, love that by humility +becomes religion. + +But still more beautiful and significant, perhaps, is the second volume +of the trilogy _Les Heures d'Après-midi_; for here again a new thing has +been discovered, a moral beauty exceeding erotic sensation, a greatness +of feeling such as can only be conferred by the noblest experience of +life. It is a book after fifteen years of wedlock. But in this time love +has not grown poorer. _The deepest secret of Verhaeren's life, never to +let his feelings grow cold and sink to a dead level, but unceasingly to +enhance them, has denied a state of rest to his love also, and raised +even this to something eternally animated and intensified_. And so his +love has been able to celebrate the highest triumph, _vaincre +l'habitude_, to conquer monotony and the dearth of feeling. Perpetual +ecstasy has made it strong. Only he who renews his passion really lives +it. When love pauses, it passes. 'Je te regarde, et tous les jours je te +découvre.[5] Every day has here renewed the feeling and made it +independent of its beginning, independent of sensual pleasure. As in +Verhaeren's whole work, passion has here been spiritualised, ecstasy +soars beyond individual experience. It is no longer an external +appearance that the now ageing couple love in each other. Lips have +paled, the body has lost its freshness, the flesh its gloss and colour; +the years of union have written their charactery in the face. Only love +has not withered: it has grown stronger than the physical attraction; it +has defied change, because it has itself changed and incessantly been +intensified. It is now unshakeable and inalienable: + + Puisque je sais que rien au monde + Ne troublera jamais notre être exalté + Et que notre âme est trop profonde + Pour que l'amour dépende encor de la beauté.[6] + +The temporal has here been overcome, and even the future, even death +have no longer any terrors. Without fear of losing himself--for 'qui vit +d'amour vit d'éternité'--the lover can think of him who stands at the +end of all ways. No fear can touch him more, for he knows he is loved, +and Verhaeren has given wonderful expression to this feeling in a poem: + + Vous m'avez dit, tel soir, des paroles si belles + Que sans doute les fleurs, qui se penchaient vers nous, + Soudain nous out aimés et que l'une d'entre elles, + Pour nous toucher tous deux, tomba sur nos genoux. + Vous me parliez des temps prochains où nos années, + Comme des fruits trop mûrs, se laisseraient cueillir; + Comment éclaterait le glas des destinées, + Et comme on s'aimerait en se sentant vieillir. + Votre voix m'enlaçait comme une chère étreinte, + Et votre cÅ“ur brûlait si tranquillement beau + Qu'en ce moment j'aurais pu voir s'ouvrir sans crainte + Les tortueux chemins qui vont vers le tombeau.[7] + +The third volume, _Les Heures du Soir_, has wonderfully closed the +peaceful cycle with a series of poems, which no doubt have old age for +their motive, but which show no trace of lassitude in the artist. Summer +has turned to autumn, but how opulent and ripe this autumn is: the +golden fruits of memory hang down and glow in the reflection of the sun +that has been so well loved. Once again love passes with bright images: +he is changed and purified, but as masterful and as strong as on the +first day. + +I love these little poems of Verhaeren's with a different and no less a +love than that I do his great and important lyric works. I have never +been able to understand why these poems--for as far as the iconoclastic +work is concerned, respect for tradition and fear of innovations may +have scared many people away--have not enjoyed a widespread popularity. +For never since the tenderly vibrating music of Verlaine's _La Bonne +Chanson_, never since the letters of the Brownings, has wedded happiness +been so marvellously celebrated as in these stanzas. Nowhere else has +love been spiritualised so nobly, with such crystal purity, nowhere else +has the synthesis of love and wedlock been more intrinsically fashioned. +It is with a quite especial love that I love these _poèmes francs et +doux_, for here behind the savage, ecstatic poet, the passionate and +strong poet of _Les Villes Tentaculaires_, another poet appears, the +simple, quiet, and modest poet, the gentle and kind poet, as we know him +in life. Here, on the other side of the poetic ecstasy, we have the +noble personality of Verhaeren, in whom we revere, not only a poetic +force, but a human perfection as well. By the luminous gate of these +frail poems goes the path to his own life. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] 'Le Paradis' (_Les Rythmes Souverains_). + +[2] 'Hommage' (_Au Bord de la Route_). + +[3] 'C'est la bonne heure où la lampe s'allume' (_Les Heures +d'Après-midi_). + +[4] 'Avec mes sens, avec mon cÅ“ur et mon cerveau'. (_Les Heures +d'Après-midi_). + +[5] 'Voici quinze ans déjà ' (_Les Heures d'Après-midi_). + +[6] 'Les baisers morts des défuntes années' (_Ibid._) + +[7] 'Vous m'avez dit, tel soir' (_Les Heures d'Après-midi_). + + + + +THE ART OF VERHAEREN'S LIFE + + Je suis d'accord avec moi-même + Et c'est assez. + É.V. + +Camille Lemonnier, the master of Verhaeren's youth, the friend of his +prime, at the banquet offered by Belgium to the poet of _Toute la +Flandre,_ spoke of their thirty years' friendship, and in a powerful +speech expressed a striking idea. 'The time will come,' he said, 'when a +man, if he is to appear with any credit before his fellow-men, will have +to prove that he has been a man himself'; and then he praised Verhaeren, +showing how completely his friend fulfilled this demand of the future, +how wholly he had been a man, with the perfection of a great work of +art. For whoever would create a great work of art, must himself be a +work of art. Whoever would influence his contemporaries, not only as an +artist, but morally as well, whoever would shape and raise our life to +his own pattern, gives us the right to ask what manner of life his own +has been, what the art of his life has been. + +In Verhaeren's case, there stands behind the poetic work of art the +incomparable masterpiece of a great life, a wonderful, victorious +battle for this art. For only a living humanity that had achieved +harmony, not supple, ingenious intellectuality, could have arrived at +such insight into knowledge. Verhaeren was not intrinsically a +harmonious nature; he had, therefore, to make a double effort to +transform the chaos of his feeling into a world. He was a restless and +an intemperate man who had to tame himself; all the germs of dissipation +and debauch were in his nature, all the possibilities of prodigality and +self-destruction. Only a life secure in its aims, supported on a strong +foundation, could force harmony from the conflicting inclinations he +possessed; only a great humanity could compress such heterogeneous +forces to one force. At the end and at the beginning of Verhaeren's +works, at the end and at the beginning of his life, stands the same +great soundness of health. The boy grew out of the healthy Flemish +fields and was from his birth gifted with all the advantages of a robust +race--and above all with passion. In the years of his youth he gave free +rein to this passion for intemperance; he raged himself out in all +directions; was intemperate in study, in drinking, in company, in his +sexual life--he was intemperate in his art. He strained his strength to +its uttermost limit, but he pulled himself together at the last moment, +and returned to himself and the health that was his birthright. His +harmony of to-day is not a gift of fate, but a prize won from life. At +the critical moment Verhaeren had the power to turn round, in order, +like Antæus, to recover his strength in the well of rejuvenescence of +his native province and in the calm of family life. + +Earth called him back, and his native province. Poetically and humanly, +his return to Belgium signifies his deliverance, the triumph of the art +of his life. Like the ship that he sings in _La Guirlande des Dunes_, +the ship that has crossed all the seas of the world, and, though half +dashed to pieces, ever comes sailing home again to Flanders, he himself +has anchored again in the harbour whence he set sail. His poetry has +ended where it began. In his last work he has celebrated the Flanders he +sang as a youth, no longer, however, as a provincial poet, but as a +national poet. Now he has ranged the past and the future along with the +present, now he has sung Flanders too, not in individual poems, but as +an entity in one poem. 'Verhaeren élargit de son propre souffle +l'horizon de la petite patrie, et, comme le fit Balzac de son ingrate et +douce Touraine, il annexe aux plaines flamandes le beau royaume humain +de son idéalité et de son art.'[1] He has returned to his own race, to +the bosom of Nature, to the eternal resources of health and life. + +And now he lives at Caillou-qui-bique, a little hamlet in the Walloon +district. Three or four houses stand there, far away from the railway, +sequestered in the wood, and yet near the fields; and of these little +houses the smallest, with few rooms and a quiet garden, is his. Here he +leads the peaceful existence which is necessary for the growth of great +work; here he holds solitary communion with Nature, undistracted by the +voices of men and the hubbub of great towns; here he dreams his cosmic +visions. He has the same healthy and simple food as the country people +around him; he goes for early morning walks across the fields, talks to +the peasants and the tradesmen of the village as though they were his +equals; they tell him of their cares and petty transactions, and he +listens to them with that unfeigned interest which he has for every form +and variety of life. As he strides across the fields his great poems +come into being, his step as it grows quicker and quicker gives them +their rhythm, the wind gives them their melody, the distance their +outlook. Any one who has been his guest there will recognise many +features of the landscape in his poems, many a cottage, many a corner, +many people, the little arts of the artisan. But how fugitive, how small +everything appears there, everything that in the poem, thanks to the +fire of the vision, is glowing, strong, and radiant with the promise of +eternity! Verhaeren lives in his Walloon home in the autumn, but in +spring and early summer he flees from his illness to the sea--flees from +hay-fever. This illness of Verhaeren's has always seemed to me +symbolical of his art and of his vital feeling, for it is, if I may say +so, an elemental illness that, when pollen flies along the breeze, when +spring lies out in sultry heat across the fields, a man's eyes should be +filled with tears, his senses irritated, and his head oppressed. This +suffering with Nature, this feeling in oneself of the pain which goes +before the spring, this torment of the breaking forth of sap, of +pressure in the air, has always appeared to me a symbol of the elemental +and physical way that Verhaeren feels Nature. For it is as though +Nature, which gives him all ecstasies, all its own dark secrets, gives +him its own pain as well, as though its web reached into his blood, his +nerves, as though the identity between the poet and the world had here +attained a higher degree than in other men. In these painful first days +of spring he flees to the sea, whose singing winds and sounding waves he +loves. There he works rarely, for the restlessness of the sea makes him +restless himself; it gives him only dreams, no works. + +But Verhaeren is no longer a primitive spirit. He is attached by too +many bonds to his contemporaries, too much in contact with all modern +striving and creation, to be able to confine himself wholly to a rural +existence. There is in him that wonderful double harmony of modern men +which lives in brotherly communion with Nature and yet clings to +Nature's supreme flower of culture. During the winter Verhaeren lives in +Paris, the most alive of all cities; for, though quiet is an inner need +of his, he looks on the unrest and noise of great cities as a precious +stimulant. Here he receives those impressions of noisy life which, +remembered in tranquillity, become poems. He loves to drift in the +many-voiced confusion of teeming streets, to receive inspiration from +pictures, books, and men. For years, in intimate cohesion with all that +is coming into existence and growing in strength, he has followed the +most delicate stirrings of the evolution of art, here too in the +happiest manner combining detachment with sympathy. For he does not live +really in Paris itself, but in Saint-Cloud, in a little flat which is +full of pictures and books, and usually of good friends as well. For +friendship, living, cheerful comradeship, has always been a necessity of +life to him, to him who has the faculty of giving himself so +whole-heartedly in friendship; and there is hardly one among the poets +of to-day who has so many friends, and so many of the best. Rodin, +Maeterlinck, Gide, Mockel, Vielé-Griffin, Signac, Rysselberghe, Rilke, +Romain Rolland, all these, who have done great things for our time, are +his close friends. With associates of this stamp he passes his life at +Paris, carefully avoiding what is called society, aloof from the salons +where fame is cultured and the transactions of art are negotiated. His +innermost being is simplicity. And all his life long this modesty has +made him indifferent to financial success, because he has never desired +to rise above the primitive necessities of his life, never known the +longing to dazzle and to be envied. While others, goaded by the success +of their acquaintances, have been thrown off their balance and have +worked themselves to death in fever, he has gone on his way calm and +unheeding. He has worked, and let his work grow slowly and organically. +And thus fame, which slowly but with irresistible sureness has grown to +his stature, has not disturbed him. It is a pleasure to see how he has +stood this last and greatest test, how he shoulders his fame stoutly, +with joy but without pride. To-day Belgium celebrates in him her +greatest poet. In France, where he was held an alien, he has forced +esteem. The greatest good has been done, however, by the fact that from +foreign races, from the whole of Europe and beyond it, from America, an +answer has come to his great reputation, that the little enmities of the +nations have called a halt before his work, and above all that it is the +younger generation who are to-day enlisted under the banner of his +enthusiasm. Inexhaustible has been his interest in young men; perhaps he +has welcomed and encouraged every beginner with only too much kindness. +For his delight in the art of others is inexhaustible; his infinite +feeling of identity makes him in the highest sense impartial and +enthusiastic, and it is a delight to see him stand in front of great +works and to learn enthusiasm from him. + +This apparent contrast between the art of his poetry and the art of his +life is at first strange and surprising. For behind so passionate a poet +one would never suspect so quiet and kind a man. Only his face--which +has already allured so many painters and sculptors--speaks of passions +and ecstasies; that brow across which, under locks growing grey, the +deep lines graven by the crisis of his youth run like the furrows of a +field. The pendent moustache (like that of Nietzsche) lends his face +power and earnestness. The salient cheek-bones and sharply chiselled +lines betray his peasant extraction, which is perhaps still more +strongly accentuated by his gait, that hard, strikingly rhythmical, +bowed gait which reminds one of the plougher treading in hard toil and +in a bent posture over newly turned turf, his gait whose rhythm reminds +one again and again of his poetry. But goodness shines in his eyes, +which--_couleur de mer_--as though new-born after all the lassitude of +the years of fever, are bright and fresh with life; there is goodness, +too, in the hearty spontaneity of his gestures. In his face the first +impression is strength; the second, that this strength is tempered with +kindness. Like every noble face, it is, when translated into sculpture, +the idea of his life. + +Some day many people will speak of Verhaeren's art; many love it to-day +already. But I believe that nobody will be able to love the poet in the +same degree as many to-day love the art of his life, this unique +personality, as people love something that can be lost and never +restored. If one at first seems to find a discord between the modesty, +gentleness, and heartiness of his humanity, and the wildness, heroism, +and hardness of his art, one at last discovers their _unity in +experience, in feeling_. When one closes the door after a conversation +with him, or one of his books after the last page, the prevailing +impression is the same: enhanced joy in life, enthusiasm, confidence in +the world, an intensified feeling of pleasure which shows life in purer, +kindlier, and more magnificent forms. This idealising effect of life +goes out equally strong from his person and from his work; every sort of +contact with him, with the poet, with the man, seems to enrich life, and +teaches one to apply to him in his turn the appreciation he always so +readily had for all the gifts of life--gratitude ever renewed and +boundlessly intensified in passion. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Vielé-Griffin, biographical note to Mockel's _Verhaeren._ + + + + +THE EUROPEAN IMPORTANCE OF HIS WORK + + Futur, vous m'exaltez comme autrefois mon Dieu! + É.V., 'La Prière.' + +The last force of everybody, the force which finally decides the effect, +which alone and first of all is able to strain his work or his activity +to the highest possibility, is the feeling of responsibility. To be +responsible, and to feel that one is responsible, is equivalent to +looking at one's whole life as a vast debt, which one is bound to strive +with all one's strength to pay off; is equivalent to surveying one's +momentary task on earth in the whole range of its significance, +importance, and periphery, in order then to raise one's own inherent +possibilities and capacities to their most complete mastery. For most +people this earthly task is outwardly restricted in an office, in a +profession, in the fixed round of some activity. With an artist, on the +other hand, it is what one might call an infinite dimension which can +never be attained; his task is therefore an unlimited, an eternal +longing, a longing that never weakens. Since his duty can really only be +to express himself with the greatest possible perfection, this +responsibility coincides with the demand that he should bring his life, +and with his life his talent, to the highest perfection, that he should, +in Goethe's sense, 'expand his narrow existence to eternity.' The artist +is responsible for his talent, because it is his task to express it. Now +the higher the idea of art is understood, the more art feels its task to +be the task of bringing the life of the universe into harmony, so much +the more must the feeling of responsibility be intensified in a creative +mind. + +Now, of all the poets of our day Verhaeren is the one who has felt this +feeling of responsibility most strongly. To write poetry is for him to +express not himself only, but the striving and straining of the whole +period as well, the fearful torment and the happiness that are in the +birth of the new things. Just because his work comprises all the present +and aims at expressing it in its entity, he feels himself responsible to +the future. For him a true poet must visualise the whole psychic care of +his time. For when later generations--in the same manner as they will +question monuments concerning our art, pictures concerning our painters, +social forms concerning our philosophers--ask of the verses and the +works of our contemporaries the question, What was your hope, your +feeling, the sum of your interpretation? how did you feel cities and +men, things and gods?--shall we be able to answer them? This is the +inner question of Verhaeren's artistic responsibility. _And this +feeling of responsibility has made his work great_. Most of the poets of +our day have been unconcerned with reality. Some of them strike up a +dancing measure, rouse and amuse people lounging in theatres; others +again tell of their own sorrow, ask for pity and compassion, they who +have never felt for others. Verhaeren, however, heedless of the approval +or disapproval of our time, turns his face towards the generations to +be: + + Celui qui me lira dans les siècles, un soir, + Troublant mes vers, sous leur sommeil ou sous leur cendre, + Et ranimant leur sens lointain pour mieux comprendre + Comment ceux d'aujourd'hui s'étaient armés d'espoir, + Qu'il sache, avec quel violent élan, ma joie + S'est, à travers les cris, les révoltes, les pleurs, + Ruée au combat fier et mâle des douleurs, + Pour en tirer l'amour, comme on conquiert sa proie.[1] + +It was, in the last instance, this magnificent feeling of responsibility +which did not permit him to pass by any manifestation of our present +time without observing and appreciating it, for he knows that later +generations will ask the question how we sensed the new thing, which to +them is a possession and a matter of course, when it was still strange +and almost hostile. His work is the answer. The true poet of to-day, in +Verhaeren's eyes, must show forth the torment and the trouble of the +whole psychic transition, the painful discovery of the new beauty in the +new things, the revolt, the crisis, the struggles it costs to +understand all this, to adapt ourselves to it, and in the end to love +it. Verhaeren has attempted to express our whole time in its earthly, +its material, its psychic form. His verses lyrically represent Europe at +the turning of the century, us and our time; they consciously +contemplate the whole circuit of the things of life: _they write a lyric +encyclopædia of our time, the intellectual atmosphere of Europe at the +turning of the twentieth century._ + +The whole of Europe speaks with his voice, speaks with a voice that +reaches beyond our time; and already from the whole of Europe comes the +answer. In Belgium Verhaeren is above all the national poet, the poet of +heaths, cities, dunes, and of the Flemish past, the great renewer of the +national pride. But he stands too near his fellow-countrymen to be +measured at his full height there. And in France, too, very few +appreciate him at his true value. Most people regard him there in his +literary aspect only and as a symbolist and decadent, an innovator of +verse, an audacious and gifted revolutionary. But very few perceive the +new and important work that is built up in his verses, very few +comprehend the entity and the logical character of his cosmic +philosophy. Nevertheless, his influence is already tangible. The new +rhythm he has created can be recognised in many poets; and such a gifted +disciple as Jules Romains has even brought his idea of the feeling of +cities to new impressiveness. Best of all, however, he is understood by +those Frenchmen who stand in a mystic communion with all that is great +and urgent abroad; who feel an ethical need, a longing for an inner +transmutation of values, for a re-moulding of races, for cosmopolitanism +and a union of the nations; so, above all, Léon Bazalgette, who revealed +Walt Whitman, the prophet of all strong and conscious reality in art, to +France. Most joyfully of all, however, the answer rings from those +countries which are themselves involved in deep-seated social and +ethical crises, those countries where the need of religion is a vital +instinct, which are eternally hungry for God, above all from Russia and +Germany. In Russia the poet of _Les Villes Tentaculaires_ is celebrated +as he is nowhere else. As the poet of social innovations he is read in +the Russian universities, and in the circles of the intellectuals he is +regarded as the spiritual pioneer of our time. Brjussow, the +distinguished young poet, has translated him, and afforded him the +possibility of popularity. In other Slavonic countries, too, his work is +beginning to spread. + +Verhaeren's success, one may well say triumph, has been strongest and +most impressive in Germany; here it has been unexpectedly intensive even +to us who have worked for it. A few years have sufficed to make him as +popular here I as any native poet, and the most beautiful feature of +his success is this, that people are already forgetting to look upon him +as a foreigner. Verhaeren is to-day part and parcel of German culture; +and much of our contemporary lyric poetry, its welcome turning to +optimism for example, would be unthinkable but for his work and +influence. Countless are the essays devoted to him, the recitations in +which our best elocutionists--Kainz, Moissi, Kayssler, Heine, Wiecke, +Durieux, Rosen, Gregori--have taken part; none of these interpreters, +however, were as enthusiastically applauded as was Verhaeren himself on +his _tournée_ in Germany, which was a great experience no less for him +than for our public, because he gladly felt that his work was now rooted +for ever in German soil. In Scandinavia, where Johannes V. Jensen in his +essays unconsciously transcribed Verhaeren's lyric work, Ellen Key, the +inspired prophetess of the feeling of life, has hailed him as she has +hailed no other, and Georg Brandes, who crowns poets, has welcomed him +with loud acclaim. Incessantly, in an irresistible, sure ascent, +Verhaeren's fame grows. And above all, his poetry is no longer regarded +as an individual thing, but as a work, as a cosmic philosophy, as an +answer to the questions of our time, as the strongest and most beautiful +enrichment of our vital feeling. Wherever people are tired of pessimism, +tired of confused mysticism, and tired of monistic shallowness; wherever +a longing stirs for a pure idealistic form of contemplation, for a new +reconciliation between our new realities and the old reverence for +eternal secrets, for the secularisation of the divine, his name stands +in the front rank. An answer comes from every direction, not because his +work was a question, but because it was in itself an answer to the +unconscious demand for a new community, a demand which is being made by +men of all nations everywhere to-day. + +But all this is only a beginning. Works like his, which are not +paradoxical enough, not dazzling enough, to produce sudden ecstasies and +literary fashions; which, by the mere fact that they have themselves +grown organically into existence, can only grow organically, but for +that reason irresistibly, in their influence; only lay hold of the +masses slowly. Only later generations will enjoy the fruit which we, +with renewed admiration, have seen ripening from the most modest of +blossoms. But already a ring of men of all nations are joining hands, a +ring of men who perceive a new centre of spirituality in Verhaeren. And +we, the few who have wholly surrendered ourselves to his work, must +appreciate it with that feeling only which he himself has taught us as +the highest feeling of life--with enthusiasm, with gratitude ever +renewed, and with joyful admiration. For to whom in our days should one +offer more abundantly and stormily this new vital doctrine of enthusiasm +as the happiest feeling than to Verhaeren, to him who was the first to +wrest it in the bitterest struggles from the depths of our time, who was +the first to shape it in the material of art, the first to raise it to +the eternal law of life? + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] 'Un Soir' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + + +I. LES FLAMANDES, poèmes. Bruxelles, Hochsteyn, 1883. LES CONTES DE +MINUIT, prose. Bruxelles (Collection de la 'Jeune Belgique'), Franck, +1885. + +JOSEPH HEYMANS, PEINTRE, critique. Bruxelles (_Société Nouvelle_), 1885. + +II. LES MOINES, poèmes. Paris, Lemerre, 1886. + +FERNAND KHNOPFF, critique. Bruxelles (_Société Nouvelle_), 1886. + +III. Au BORD DE LA ROUTE, poèmes. Liège (_La Wallonie_), 1891. + +IV. LES SOIRS, poèmes. Bruxelles, Deman, 1887. + +V. LES DÉBÂCLES, poèmes. Bruxelles, Deman, 1888. + +VI. LES FLAMBEAUX NOIRS, poèmes. 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Barcelona, Pedro Ortega, 1899. + +LES VISAGES DE LA VIE, poèmes, ornementés par T. van Rysselberghe. +Bruxelles, Deman, 1899. + +POÈMES (3e série, vii., viii., _Les Vignes de ma Muraille_). Paris, +Mercure de France, 1899. + +LE CLOÃŽTRE, drame en 4 actes, prose et vers, ornementé par T. van +Rysselberghe. Bruxelles, Deman, 1900. + +PETITES LÉGENDES, poèmes. Bruxelles, Deman, 1900. + +LES PETITS VIEUX. London, Hacon & Ricketts, 1901. + +PHILIPPE H., tragédie en 3 actes, vers et prose. Paris, Mercure de +France, 1901. + +LES FORCES TUMULTUEUSES, poèmes. Paris, Mercure de France, 1902. + +LES VILLES TENTACULAIRES, précédées des _Campagnes Hallucinées,_ poèmes. +Paris, Mercure de France, 1904. + +TOUTE LA FLANDRE: _Les Tendresses Premières_, poèmes. Bruxelles, Deman, +1904. + +LES HEURES D'APRÈS-MIDI, poèmes. Bruxelles, Deman, 1905. + +REMBRANDT, étude. Paris, Henri Laurens [1905]. + +IMAGES JAPONAISES, texte d'É. V ..., illustrations de Kwassou. Tokio, +1906. + +LA MULTIPLE SPLENDEUR, poèmes. Paris, Mercure de France, 1906. + +TOUTE LA FLANDRE: _La Guirlande des Dunes_, poèmes. Bruxelles, Deman, +1907. + +LES LETTRES FRANÇAISES EN BELGIQUE. Bruxelles, Lamertin, 1907. + +LES VISAGES DE LA VIE (_Les Visages de la Vie, Les douze Mois_), poèmes, +nouvelle édition. Paris, Mercure de France, 1908. + +TOUTE LA FLANDRE: _Les Héros_. Bruxelles, Deman, 1908. + +JAMES ENSOR, étude. Bruxelles, E. van Oest, 1908. + +TOUTE LA FLANDRE: _Les Villes à Pignons_. Bruxelles, Deman, 1909. + +HELENAS HEIMKEHR. Leipzig, Insel-Verlag, 1909. (Translation by Stefan +Zweig of _Hélène de Sparte_.) + +DEUX DRAMES: LE CLOÃŽTRE, PHILIPPE II. Paris, Mercure de France, 1909. + +LES RYTHMES SOUVERAINS, poèmes. Paris, Mercure de France, 1910. + +PIERRE-PAUL RUBENS. Brussels, G. van Oest & Cie., 1910. + +LES HEURES DU SOIR. Leipzig, Insel-Verlag, 1911. + +HÉLÈNE DE SPARTE, tragédie en 4 actes. Paris, 'Nouvelle Revue +Française,' 1912. + +TOUTE LA FLANDRE: _Les Plaines_. Bruxelles, Deman, 1911. + +LES BLÉS MOUVANTS, poèmes. Paris, Crès, 1912. + +LES VILLAGES ILLUSOIRES, avec 15 gravures à l'eau forte par Henry Ramah. +Leipzig, Insel-Verlag, 1913. + +RUBENS. Leipzig, Insel-Verlag, 1913. + +LES BLÉS MOUVANTS, poèmes. Paris, Mercure de France, 1913. + +Å’UVRES D'ÉMILE VERHAEREN (IV., V., VI., VII., VIII., _Les Vignes de +ma Muraille_). Paris, Mercure de France, 1914. + + + +TRANSLATIONS INTO ENGLISH + +THE DAWN (_Les Aubes_), by Émile Verhaeren, translated by Arthur Symons. +London, Duckworth, 1898. + +POEMS BY ÉMILE VERHAEREN, selected and rendered into English by Alma +Strettel. London, John Lane, 1899. + +CONTEMPORARY BELGIAN POETRY, selected and translated by Jethro Bithell. +('Canterbury Poets' series.) London, Walter Scott, 1911. (60 pp. are +translations of Verhaeren's poems.) + + + +CRITICISMS + + +BOOKS + +Bazalgette, Léon: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. Paris, Sansot, 1907. (One of the +series 'Les Célébrités d'aujourd'hui.') + +Beaunier, André: LA POÉSIE NOUVELLE. Paris, Mercure de France, 1902. + +Bersaucourt, Albert de: CONFÉRENCE SUR ÉMILE VERHAEREN. Paris, Jouve, +1908. + +Bever, Ad. van, et Paul Léautaud: POÈTES D'AUJOURD'HUI, nouvelle +édition, tome 2. Paris, Mercure de France, 1909. + +Boer, Julius de: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. [1907.] (One of the series 'Mannen en +Vrouwen van beteekenis in onze dagen.') + +Bosch, Firmin van den: IMPRESSIONS DE LITTÉRATURE CONTEMPORAINE. +Bruxelles, Vromant et Cie., 1905. + +Buisseret, Georges: L'ÉVOLUTION IDÉOLOGIQUE D'ÉMILE VERHAEREN. Paris, +Mercure de France, 1910. (One of the series 'Les Hommes et les Idées.') + +Casier, Jean: LES 'MOINES' D'ÉMILE VERHAEREN. Gand, Leliaert et Siffer, +1887. + +Crawford, Virginia M.: STUDIES IN FOREIGN LITERATURE. London, Duckworth, +1899. + +Florian-Parmentier: TOUTES LES LYRES. Anthologie Critique ornée de +dessins et de portraits, nouvelle série. Paris, Gastein-Serge, [1911]. + +Gauchez, Maurice: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. Bruxelles, éditions du 'Thyrse,' +1908. + +Gilbert, Eugène: FRANCE ET BELGIQUE. Paris, Pion, Nourrit et Cie, 1905. + +Gosse, Edmund: FRENCH PROFILES. London, Heinemann, 1905. + +Gourmont, Remy de: LE LIVRE DES MASQUES. Paris, Mercure de France, 1896. + +Gourmont, Remy de: PROMENADES LITTÉRAIRES. Paris, Mercure de France, +1904. + +Guilbeaux, Henri: É. VERHAEREN. Verviers, Wauthy, 1908. + +Hamel, A. G. van: HET LETTERKUNDIG LEVEN VAN FRANKRIJK. Amsterdam, van +Kampen & Zoon [1907]. + +Hauser, Otto: DIE BELGISCHE LYRIK VON 1880-1900. Grossenhain, Baumert +und Ronge, 1902. + +Heumann, Albert: LE MOUVEMENT LITTÉRAIRE BELGE D'EXPRESSION FRANÇAISE +DEPUIS 1880. Paris, Mercure de France, 1913. + +Horrent, Désiré: ÉCRIVAINS BELGES D'AUJOURD'HUI. Bruxelles, Lacomblez, +1904. + +Key, Ellen: SEELEN UND WERKE. Berlin, S. Fischer, 1911. + +Kinon, Victor: PORTRAITS D'AUTEURS. Bruxelles, Dechenne, 1910. + +Le Cardonnel, Georges, et Charles Vellay: LA LITTÉRATURE CONTEMPORAINE, +1905. Paris, Mercure de France, 1906. + +Lemonnier, Camille: LA VIE BELGE. Paris, Fasquelle, 1905. + +Mercereau, Alexandre: LA LITTÉRATURE ET LES IDÉES NOUVELLES. Paris, +Figuière, and London, Stephen Swift, 1912. + +Mockel, Albert: ÉMILE VERHAEREN, avec une note biographique par F. +Vielé-Griffin. Paris, Mercure de France, 1895. + +Nouhuys, W.G. van: VAN OVER DE GRENSEN, STUDIËN EN CRITIEKEN. Baarn, +Hollandia Drukkerij, 1906. + +Oppeln-Bronikowski, F. von: DAS JUNGE FRANKREICH. Berlin, Oesterheld und +Co., 1908. + +Ramaekers, Georges: É. VERHAEREN. Bruxelles, éditions de 'La Lutte,' +1900. + +Rency, Georges: PHYSIONOMIES LITTÉRAIRES. Bruxelles, Dechenne et Cie, +1907. + +Rimestad, Christian: FRANSK POESI I DET NITTENDE AARHUNDREDE. +Kjøbenhavn, Det Schubotheske, 1906. + +Schellenberg, E.A.: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. Leipzig, Xenien-Verlag, 1911. + +Schlaf, Johannes: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. Berlin, Schuster und Loeffler, +[1905]. + +Smet, Abbé Jos. de: ÉMILE VERHAEREN, SA VIE ET SES Å’UVRES. Malines, +1909. + +Tellier, Jules: Nos POÈTES. Paris, Despret, 1888. + +Thompson, Vance: FRENCH PORTRAITS. Boston, Badger & Co., 1900. + +Vigié-Lecoq, E.: LA POÉSIE CONTEMPORAINE, 1884-1896. Paris, Mercure de +France, 1897. + +Visan, Tancrède de: L'ATTITUDE DU LYRISME CONTEMPORAIN. Paris, Mercure +de France, 1911. + +Zweig, Stefan: PREFACE TO ÉMILE VERHAERENS AUSGEWÄHLTE GEDICHTE IN +NACHDICHTUNG. Berlin, Schuster und Loeffler, 1903. + + +PERIODICALS + +Brandes, Georg: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. _Politiken_, Copenhagen, 8th June 1903. + +Brandes, Georg: ÉMILE VERHAEREN ALS DRAMATIKER. _Die Schaubühne_, +Berlin, 5th April 1906. + +Edwards, Osman: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. _The Savoy_, November 1897. + +Fontainas, André: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. _L'Art Moderne_, Brussels, 23rd +February 1902. + +Fresnois, André du: LETTRE DE PARIS, HÉLÈNE DE SPARTE. _La Vie +Intellectuelle_, Brussels, May 1912. + +Gosse, Edmund: M. VERHAEREN'S NEW POEMS (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). +_Daily Chronicle_, 17th February 1902. + +Gosse, Edmund: M. VERHAEREN'S NEW POEMS (_Les Blés Mouvants_). _New +Weekly_,18th April 1914. + +Gourmont, Jean de: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. _Les Marges_, Paris, March 1914. + +Krains, Hubert: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. _Société Nouvelle_, Brussels, June +1895. + +Mauclair, Camille: TROIS POÈTES. _Revue Encyclopédique_, Paris, 25th +April 1896. + +Maurras, Charles: LITTÉRATURE. _Revue Encyclopédique_, Paris, 23rd +January 1897. + +Polak, Emile: ÉMILE VERHAEREN EN RUSSIE. _La Vie Intellectuelle,_ +Brussels, January 1914. + +Reboul, Jacques: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. _L'Olivier_, Paris, 15th February +1914. + +Régnier, Henri de: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. _Revue Blanche_, Paris, March 1895. + +Rodrigue, G.M.: HÉLÈNE DE SPARTE. _Le Thyrse_, Brussels, July 1912. + +Sadler, Michael T.H.: ÉMILE VERHAEREN: AN APPRECIATION. _Poetry and +Drama_, June 1913. + +Sautreau, Georges: L'Å’UVRE LYRIQUE D'ÉMILE VERHAEREN. _Revue +Scandinave_, Paris, December 1911--January 1912. + +Speth, William: L'INSPIRATION DE VERHAEREN ET LES COLORISTES FLAMANDS. +_La Vie des Lettres_, Paris, January 1914. + +Vielé-Griffin, Francis: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. _La Plume_, Paris, + +25th April 1896. Vielé-Griffin, Francis: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. _Mercure de +France_, Paris, 15th March 1914. + + + + +INDEX + + ACTORS, 131, 133, 174-175. + Admiration, 12, 29, 30, 46, 50, + 101, 172, 183, 217 ff., 259. + Aeroplanes, 4, 164, 209. + Æsthetics, 10, 85, 94, 115, 116, + 151, 205. + Africa, 114. + Agrarianism, 9, 101, 187. + 'À la Gloire du Vent,' 200. + Alcohol, 15. + Alexandrine, the, 32, 41, 48, 74, + 144, 147 ff., 163, 170. + _Almanack_, 197. + _Also Sprach Zarathustra_,134. + America, 15, 24, 108, 113, 115, + 120, 131-132, 135, 231, 250. + Artisans, 16, 131, 194, 211, 235, + 247. + Asceticism, 16, 43, 162, 168. + _Au Bord de la Route_, 57-60, 62, + 63, 68, 111, 149, 236. + 'Au Bord du Quai,' 202. + Auerbach, Berthold, 38. + 'Aujourd'hui,' 4. + 'Autour de ma Maison,' 217, 226. + 'Aux Moines,' 43, 49, 51. + + BAKST, LÉON, 174. + Ballads, old German, 146, 159. + Balzac, Honoré de, 246. + Banville, Théodore de, 143. + Baudelaire, Charles, 59, 120, 142. + Bayreuth, 92. + Bazalgette, Léon, 232, 238, 257. + Beauty, 37-38, 45, 49-52, 83, + 96 ff., 104, 199, 206, 207, 221, + 230, 231, 240. + --, the new, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 83, + 96 ff., 100, 104, 105, 170-172, + 222, 255. + _Béguinages_, 22, 44. + Belfries, 39, 50, 157. + Belgian art, 21-22, 45. + --life, 45. + --literature, 19, 25-26, 37-38. + --race, the, 17 ff., 23-24. + Belgium, 13 ff., 256. + Berlin, 87, 91, 113. + Bersaucourt, Albert de, 135. + Bornhem, 45. + Brandes, Georg, 258. + Breughel, 40. + Brezina, Otokar, 207. + Brjussow, Valerius, 257. + Brownings, the, 243. + Bruges, 21, 39, 43. + Brussels, 14, 32, 93. + + CAILLOU-QUI-BIQUE, 30, 246. + Carducci, Giosuè, 187, 193. + Carlyle, Thomas, 86. + 'Celle des Voyages,' 141. + 'Celui de la Fatigue,' 66. + 'Celui du Savoir,' 76. + Chance, 104, 110, 111, 204, 212. + 'Charles le Téméraire,' 13. + Charles v., 25. + Chiaroscuro, 46, 190. + Chimay, 46. + Christ, 68, 70, 184, 211. + Christianity, 49, 51. + Cities, 3, 4, 6, 9, 13-14, 29-30, + 55, 75-77, 83, 89 ff., 94 ff., + 101 ff., 107, 109, 111-113, 116-118, + 125-126, 131, 140, 165-167, + 181, 191, 197, 222, 231, 238, + 247, 249, 257. + Classicism, 7, 52, 82, 84, 100, + 160, 162, 172, 190. + Claus, Émile, 22. + Cloisters, 9, 22, 25, 26, 43-46, 147, + 165-166. + Colmar, 92. + Comédie Française, the, 149. + Concentration, 188, 194. + Congo, the, 17. + Conservatives, the, 104. + Contemporary feeling, 5 ff., 81-90, + 101 ff., 112, 115, 118, 148, + 182, 234, 248, 254 ff. + Coppée, François, 143. + _Cosmic Enthusiasm_, 220. + Cosmic feeling, 8, 69-70, 74-75, + 81 ff., 112-113, 126, 134, 152, + 179-185, 186, 188, 192, 198 ff., + 219, 226, 228, 231, 256, 258. + --law, 198, 202-203. + --pain, 68. + Cosmopolitanism, 22, 257. + Cosmos, the, 8. + Coster, Charles de, 19, 23, 167, + 168. + Country, the, 9, 15, 26, 29, 30, + 101 ff., 107, 245, 247, 248. + Courtrai, 21. + Criticism, 33-34, 187, 218. + Crommelynck, Fernand, 22. + Crowd, the, 104 ff., 117, 118, 121, + 122, 125-127, 129, 130, 132, + 134-136, 139, 140, 148, 152. + + DAVID, GERHARD, 43. + Death, 60, 61, 63, 65, 69, 242. + Decadence, 18. + Decadents, the, 143, 256. + Declamation (_see_ Recitation). + Defregger, Franz, 38. + Dehmel, Richard, 75-76, 187, 191, + 229, 234. + Deman, Edmond, 32. + Democracy, 9, 77, 81 ff., 108, 109, + 111, 114, 197, 206. + Demolder, Eugène, 22. + Déroulède, Paul, 135. + Deutsches Volkstheater, Vienna, 174. + Dialogue, 129. + + Disease, 55 ff., 102, 204, 209. + Dithyramb, the, 73, 161. + Divinity (_see_ God). + Dixmude, 44. + Dostoieffsky, F.M., 63, 166. + Drama, the, 150, 151, 161 ff., + 194, 235. + Dyck, Ernest van, 32. + + _Ecce Homo!_ 63, 66, 85-86, 119, + 218. + + Ecstasy, 24, 61, 66, 75, 76, 82, + 89, 90, 92, 94, 121, 128, 133, + 136, 137, 139, 152, 165-167, + 169, 173, 183, 184, 187, 189, + 209, 213, 216, 217, 220, 221, + 223, 225-229, 231, 232, 234, + 235, 237-239, 241, 243, 248, + 251, 259. + Edwards, Osman, 174. + Eekhoud, Georges, 22. + Egoism (_see_ Selfishness). + Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 140. + Emigrants, 9, 102-103, 187. + Energy, 50, 88 ff., 92, 95, 96, 99, + 105, 111, 114, 116, 117, 121, + 132, 182, 198, 199, 218, 221, + 223. + Engineering, 4, 5, 9, 82. + England, 13, 55, 63, 64, 90, 92, + 108, 113, 114. + Enthusiasm, 12, 30, 89, 111, 132, + 138, 153, 161-164, 168, 172-174, + 179, 183, 184, 187, 188, 193, + 194, 198, 207, 209, 210, 215 ff, + 220-222, 225-227, 232, 234, + 250, 252, 259. + Epic, the, 19, 23, 150, 151, 161. + Eroticism, 167,172-173, 234, 235, + 237, 240. + Ethics, 6, 115, 182, 183, 187, + 206, 215 ff., 216. + Europe, 9, 13, 20, 23, 101, 114, + 201, 231, 250, 253 ff. + European consciousness, 114. + --feeling, 22. + --race, the, 114-115. + --the New, 9. + Evolution, 3 ff., 10, 82, 105, 142, + 180, 195-197, 213, 216, 218, + 229, 249. + Excess, 15, 16, 24, 31, 40-41, 44, + 61, 121, 139, 232, 245. + Exchanges, 90, 98, 99, 155. + Exultation, 24, 44, 91, 130, 133. + Eycks, van, the, 43. + + FACTORIES, 89, 97, 100, 102, 155. + Faith, 31, 44, 46, 50, 67, 69, 95, + 104, 167, 184, 196, 208-210, + 212, 227. + Fate, 62, 203, 212, 213. + Faust, 72, 209. + Fellowship, 73, 76, 94, 223, 227, 249. + Fervour (_see_ Enthusiasm). + Flanders, 15, 19, 22, 23, 27, 30, + 33, 36, 39, 40, 43, 44, 46, 51, + 168, 197, 246, 246, 256. + Flemings, the, 14, 15, 43. + Flemish language, the, 154, 155. + 'Fleur Fatale,' 63, 65. + Florence, 52, 92, 191. + Force, 232, 253. + Forth Bridge, the, 87. + France, 13, 22, 134, 250, 256. + Future, the, 8, 10, 14, 36, 51, 53, + 89, 104, 115, 167, 180, 182, 201, + 204, 211, 227, 231, 232, 244, + 246, 253-255. + + GAIETY THEATRE, Manchester, 174. + Gauchez, Maurice, 154. + Genius, men of, 18. + Genre-pictures, 40. + George, Stefan, 187. + Germany, 19, 55, 91, 92, 174, 257, 258. + Ghent, 25, 213. + Gide, Andre', 249. + Glesener, Edmond, 22. + God, 6, 7, 47-48, 68, 95, 104, 105, + 109-111, 165, 182, 184, 185, + 199, 203-205, 208, 210, 212-215, + 222, 259. + Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, 70, + 71, 72,139, 158, 160, 193, 197, + 254. + Goodness, 72, 251. + Gothic art, 45. + Greece, 82, 86, 165. + Greeks, the, 52, 84, 172, 190. + Grünewald, Mathias, 92. + Gueux, the, 20, + 'Guillaume de Juliers,' 228. + Guyau, Jean-Marie, 8. + + HAMBURG, 92. + Handiwork, 28, 82, 86, 93, 211. + Harmony, 23, 36, 70, 84, 85, 118, + 125, 127, 130, 146, 149, 160, + 167, 169, 170, 181, 183, 184, + 213, 216, 245, 254. + Hay fever, 29, 247-248. + Health, 16-18, 67, 72, 73, 231, + 245, 246, 251. + _Hélène de Sparte_,162, 165, 169-172, + 174-175. + Heymans, Joseph, 22. + Holland, 13. + Homer, 128. + 'Hommage,' 236. + Horniman, Miss, 174. + Hugo, Victor, 10-11, 32, 120, 134-135, + 138, 142-143, 145, 147, 160. + + Humility, 221, 233, 240. + Huysmans, Joris Karl, 22. + + IDENTITY, 8, 77, 96, 126, 184, 205, + 223, 225, 228, 230, 248, 250. + Iliad, the, 19. + Impressionists, the, 9, 86, 222, 249. + India, 109, 114. + Individual, the, 110, 111, 118. + Industrialism, 9, 77, 81 ff., 101, + 125, 131, 187, 205-206. + Inquisition, the, 16, 169. + 'Insatiablement,' 61. + Instinct, 98, 100, 113, 229, 236. + Intemperance (_see_ Excess). + Intensification, 20, 24, 30, 49, 64, + 66, 131, 137, 152, 162, 164, 190, + 200-202, 207, 220, 225, 229, + 241, 252, 254. + Intoxication, 20, 22, 24, 64, 91, + 189, 199, 232. + Italy, 13, 86, 92, 108, 114, 191. + + JENSEN, JOHANNES V., 258. + Jesuits, the, 25-26. + Jesus, 68, 70. + Jordaens, Jakob, 15, 40, 41. + Joy, 61, 66, 74, 106, 133, 184, 214, + 217, 228, 230-233, 240. + + KAHN, GUSTAVE, 144. + Kainz, Josef, 258. + Kermesses, 15, 31, 40, 43. + Key, Ellen, 258. + Khnopff, Fernand, 21, 45. + Klinger, Max, 128. + Knowledge, 179, 180, 216, 220-222, + 225, 227, 229, 232-234, 236, 245. + Künstlertheater, Munich, 174. + + 'LA BARQUE,' 58. + 'Là -has,' 62. + Labour Party, Belgian, 93. + 'La Bourse,' 98. + 'La Conquête' (_La Multiple Splendeur_), + 109, 114, 199. + 'La Conquête' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_), + 115, 203, 206. + 'L'Action,' 128, 209, 220. + 'La Ferveur,' 204, 208, 219, 224-225, 232. + 'La Folie,' 212. + 'La Forêt,' 77. + Laforgue, Jules, 144. + 'La Foule,' 3, 76, 95, 107, 112, + 152, 185. + _La Guirlande des Dunes_, 246. + 'La Joie,' 55, 66, 226, 231. + 'La Louange du Corps humain,' 227. + Lamartine, A.M.L. de, 32, 145. + 'L'Âme de la Ville,' 95, 97, 105. + 'La Mort,' 211. + 'La Morte,' 64. + 'L'Amour,' 68. + _La Multiple Splendeur_, 109, 114, + 122, 126, 182, 183, 199, 200, + 204, 208, 209, 210, 211, 217, + 219, 221, 223, 224-225, 226, + 227, 228, 231, 232, 233. + 'La Plaine,' 103. + 'La Pluie,' 71. + 'La Prière,' 253. + 'La Recherche,' 207, 211. + 'L'Art,' 11. + 'La Science,' 209, 210. + Latin races, the, 19. + 'L'Attente,' 197, 211, 212. + 'L'Aventurier,' 71. + 'La Vie,' 215, 219, 228. + 'La Ville,' 97. + 'L'Eau,' 201-202. + 'Le Bazar,' 98, 99. + 'Le Capitaine,' 116. + Le Cardonnel, Georges, 215-216. + _Le Cloître_, 49, 162, 165-166, 168, + 172, 174. + 'Le Départ,' 103. + 'Le Forgeron,' 70, 73. + 'Le Gel,' 58. + Lemonnier, Camille, 20-21, 33, 37, 244. + 'Le Mont,' 81. + 'L'En-Avant,' 125, 226. + 'Le Paradis,' 213, 236. + 'Le Passeur d'Eau,' 71. + 'Le Port,' 103. + Lerberghe, Charles van, 15, 22, 25, 26. + 'Le Roc,' 61, 64, 65. + 'L'Erreur,' 208. + _Les Apparus dans mes Chemins_, 66, 72, 73, 76. + _Les Aubes_, 103, 109, 115, 162, 166-167. + _Les Blés Mouvants_, 36, 229. + 'Les Cultes,' 203. + _Les Débâcles_, 57, 60, 61, 63, 65. + _Les Campagnes Hallucinées_, 97, + 101 ff., 162, 197. + _Les Flamandes_, 33, 36 ff., 49, 45, + 197, 229. + _Les Flambeaux Noirs_, 67, 61, 64, 65. + _Les Forces Tumultueuses_, 11, 17, + 115, 116, 123, 125, 132, 137, + 161, 182, 183, 186, 203, 204, + 206, 208, 209, 210, 212, 220, + 222, 226, 229, 233, 255. + _Les Héros_, 4, 228. + _Les Heures Claires_, 237. + _Les Heures d'Après-midi_, 234, 237, + 239, 240, 241, 241, 242. + _Les Heures du Soir_, 237, 242. + 'Les Heures où l'on crée,' 123. + 'Les Mages,' 233. + _Les Moines_, 43 ff., 55, 58, 145, + 162, 165, 197, 208. + 'Les Nombres,' 65. + 'Le Sonneur,' 71, 187. + 'Les Pêcheurs,' 71. + 'Les Penseurs,' 209, 210. + _Les Petites Légendes_, 197. + 'Les Promeneuses,' 98. + 'Les Rêves,' 215, 221. + _Les Rythmes Souverains_, 182, 183, + 213, 229, 236, 253. + 'Les Saintes,' 72, 73. + _Les Soirs_,57, 58, 60, 61. + 'Les Spectacles,' 98, 179. + _Les Tendresses Premières_, 4, 25, 27. + _Les Vignes de ma Muraille_, 141. + 'Les Vieux Maîtres,' 39. + _Les Villages Illusoires_, 70-71, 73, 162, 187. + 'Les Villes,' 91, 204. + _Les Villes Tentaculaires_, 91 ff., + 103, 104, 105, 115, 158, 162, + 166, 197, 205, 207, 211, 257. + _Les Visages de la Vie_ ,3, 55, 66, + 76, 77, 95, 107, 112, 152, 182, + 183, 185, 199, 201-202, 209, + 211, 212, 220. + 'L'Étal,' 99. + 'Le Tribun,' 132. + 'Le Verbe,' 117, 122, 126. + 'L'Heure Mauvaise,' 57, 59, 149. + 'L'Impossible,' 137, 220, 222. + Locomotives, 124, 125. + London, 55, 63, 90, 92, 108, 113, 114. + Louvain, 31. + Love, 7, 29, 66, 72, 86, 170-173, + 197, 221, 223-224, 230, 234 ff. + + MACHINERY, 74, 81-82, 84 ff., + 155, 206, 211. + Madness, 57, 63 ff., 69, 102. + Maeterlinck, Maurice, 15, 22, 25, + 26, 45, 143, 213, 249. + _Maison du Peuple, La_, 93. + Mallarmé, Stéphane, 144. + Manchester, 174. + 'Ma Race,' 17, 35. + Marriage, 94, 197, 237 ff., 243. + Martyrs, 19, 207. + 'Méditation,' 208. + Mendès, Catulle, 143. + Merrill, Stuart, 143. + Messel, Alfred, 87. + Metaphors, 46, 136, 137, 141, + 156, 157, 160. + Metaphysics, 24, 184, 199, 203, + 215, 216, 220, 236. + Meunier, Constantin, 17, 22, 86. + Minne, Georges, 21, 45. + Mockel, Albert, 22, 48, 139, 143, + 157, 189, 246, 249. + Monasteries (_see_ Cloisters). + Monastery of Bornhem, 45. + --of Forges, 46. + Monet, Claude, 86. + Money, 95, 98-99, 102, 103, 114 201. + Monistic philosophy, 202, 258. + Monks, 44, 45 ff., 235. + Mont, Pol de, 14. + Morality, 6, 16, 40, 51, 88, 167, + 182, 205, 216, 217, 219, 224. + Moréas, Jean, 143. + Motion, 121, 141, 217. + Motor-cars, 14, 87, 124. + 'Mourir,' 60. + Multitude (_see_ Crowd). + Munich, 19, 92, 174. + Music halls, 98. + Mysticism, 214, 258. + Mystics, the, 18, 207. + Mythology, 51, 172, 182, 184. + + NATURALISM, 37-38, 41. + Nature, 3, 20, 28, 29, 55, 94, 96, + 99, 105, 112, 123, 125, 158, 172, + 195, 200-205, 212, 213, 239, + 246, 247, 248. + Necessary, the, is the beautiful, + 7, 9, 10, 86, 218. + Neologisms, 154, 160. + Neurasthenia, 56 ff., 118. + New age, the, 3 ff., 105, 206-207, 211. + --European, the, 9. + New York, 108. + Nietzsche, Friedrich, 10, 68, 66, + 85-86, 115, 119, 133, 134, 181, + 218, 229, 251. + + OMBIAUX, MAURICE DES, 22. + OnomatopÅ“ia, 149. + Oppidomagnum, 103, 108, 166-167, + Optimism, 184, 207, 208, 210, 258. + Organisation, 6, 88, 93, 98, 101, + 107, 114, 116, 118-119. + Orgies, 15, 39, 40, 41. + Oxford, 25. + + PAN, 51, 184. + Pan-American, the, 115. + Pan-European, the, 115. + Pantheism, 24, 77, 215, 225, 226. + Paradise, 212-213. + Paris, 55, 87, 93, 108, 113, 114, + 174, 248-249. + Parnassian poetry, 48, 145, 146. + Paroxysm, 63, 64, 89, 188. + _Parsival_,37. + Passion, 48, 67, 77, 92, 97, 99, + 109, 110, 117, 118, 120-123, + 128-131, 133, 135, 136, 147, + 159, 163-165, 168-170, 173, 174, + 179, 181, 189, 194, 212, 215, + 217, 227-229, 231, 232, 235, + 238, 241, 245, 251, 252. + Past, the, 7, 10, 14, 26, 36, 46, + 50-53, 69, 82, 85 ff., 94, 100, + 104, 105, 109, 167, 180, 182, + 207, 231, 246. + Peasants, 16, 20-21, 29, 102-103, + 146-147, 247, 251. + Pessimism, 43, 68, 258. + Petöfi, Alexander, 132. + Philip II., 16, 19,167-169. + _Philippe II._, 92,162, 165, 167-169, 174. + Philosophy, 9, 10, 151, 179, 182, + 184, 187, 194, 216, 236, 256, 258. + Picard, Edmond, 33. + Poetry, the new, 6, 7, 8, 73, 77, + 83 ff., 109, 111-113, 116, 119, + 126, 132, 133, 137, 139, 155, + 205-206, 216, 222. + Poets, the, 50-51, 82, 208-209. + --of the old school, 6, 7, 12, + 51-52, 81 ff., 109, 111-112, 125, + 129-131, 188, 190, 192, 193, + 206, 255. + Pol de Mont, 14. + Poverty, 14, 16, 94, 102-103. + Prague, 91. + Present, the, 3 ff., 10, 51, 52, + 105, 115, 167, 179-180, 182, + 201, 246, 254, 255, 256. + Pride, 23, 70, 72, 219, 221, 224, + 230, 231, 256. + Progress, 3-5, 7, 104, 209. + Prostitutes, 98, 99, 102. + Protestantism, 14. + Pseudoanæsthesia, 156. + Psychology, 47, 113, 180. + Puritanism, 16. + + RABELAIS, FRANÇOIS, 40. + Realism, 37-38, 199. + Reality, 6, 7, 37-38, 50-52, 70, + 81, 85-86, 111, 114, 115, 131, + 153, 155, 167, 179, 183, 185, + 192, 196, 198, 199, 201, 204, + 206, 255, 259. + Recitation, 122-123, 128 ff., 136, + 139, 149, 157. + Reinhardt, Max, 174. + Religion, 6, 9, 24, 44, 47, 50, 64, + 67, 105, 182-184, 196, 205, 208, + 211, 238, 240, 257. + --, a new, 6, 20, 50, 88, 104. + Rembrandt, 11, 43, 46, 187. + _Rembrandt_, 2, 11. + Renan, Ernest, 85. + Renunciation, 19, 27, 44, 52. + Responsibility, 253 ff. + Revolt, 16, 30, 42, 62, 99, 117, + 122, 142-146, 160, 169, 195, + 229, 256. + Rhapsodists, 128 ff. + Rhetoricians, 134. + Rhyme, 144, 153, 155. + Rhythm, 24, 41, 74, 94, 95, 97, + 105, 116, 118 ff., 137, 141, + 146 ff., 153, 157, 163, 173, 174, + 193, 194, 201, 238, 247, 251, 256. + --of life, the, 5, 7, 8, 11, 117 ff. + Rilke, Rainer Maria, 154, 187, 249. + _Ring, The_, 37. + Rodenbach, Georges, 21, 25, 26, 39. + Rodin, Auguste, 135, 249. + Rolland, Romain, 249, + Romains, Jules, 256-257. + Roman Catholicism, 14, 16, 24, + 26, 31, 44, 46, 67, 69, 162, 165-166, + 168-169, 184. + Romanticism, 46. + Romanticists, the, 50, 147. + Rome, 108, 114. + Rops, Félicien, 22. + Rubens, Peter Paul, 20, 40, 41, + 43, 58. + Rubinstein, Ida, 174. + Ruskin, John, 82. + Russia, 257. + Russians, the, 43. + Rysselberghe, Théo van, 22, 249. + + ST. AMAND, 27- + Saint-Cloud, 249. + 'Saint Georges,' 72, 73. + Sainte-Barbe, College of, 25-26, 30, 213. + St. Petersburg, 114. + Saints, 19, 210, 212. + 'S'amoindrir,' 60. + Scandinavia, 18, 258. + Scheldt, the, 27, 28. + Schiller, Friedrich, 134,158, 160, 168. + Schlaf, Johannes, 65. + Scholars, 209, 210. + Science, 6, 9, 18, 64, 77, 82, 85, + 108, 155, 205-209, 222. + Sea, the, 13, 15, 30, 103, 201, + 202, 247, 248. + Selfishness, 72, 223. + Sensations, 6-9, 65,104, 120, 125, + 130, 164, 188, 189, 190, 192, + 202, 203, 225, 240. + Sensuality, 15, 16, 24, 40, 41, 44, + 98, 162, 170-172, 241, 245. + Sex, 234 ff. + Shakespeare, William, 10, 163. + Signac, Paul, 249. + Silence, 44-46, 117, 122, 130, 214, 239 + 'Si Morne,' 61. + Social feeling, 83, 110. + --problem, the, 8, 9, 101 ff., 187. + Socialism, 9, 24, 89, 93, 224. + Society, 249. + Solitude, 44, 55, 57, 69, 70, 76, + 81, 83, 86, 91, 112, 237. + Sonnets, 41, 46. + Soul, 43, 89, 141, 182, 225, 237. + 'Sous les Prétoriens,' 111. + Spain, 16, 55, 92, 162, 165, 191. + Spaniards, the, 16. + Stappen, van der, 22. + Stevens, Alfred, 22. + Strauss, David, 50. + Suicide, 62, 64, 65. + Superman, the, 115. + Symbolism, 71, 99, 143 ff. + Symbolists, the, 143 ff., 256. + Symbols, 7, 19,21, 45, 47, 51, 70, + 71, 72, 92, 104, 107, 144, 163, + 165, 168, 195, 201, 202, 213, + 218, 237, 247, 248. + Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 160. + + TAMERLAINE, 108. + _Tannhäuser_,37. + Teutonic elements, 14, 18, 24, 39, + 146, 159, 194, 225. + Thames, the, 64. + _Thyl Ulenspiegel_, 19, 167, 168. + Toledo, 191. + Tolstoy, Leo, 82. + Torpedo-boats, 87. + _Toute la Flandre_, 4, 23, 25, 27, + 168, 197, 244, 246. + Town (_see_ City). + Tradition, 26, 27, 85, 92, 145, 146, 243. + Travel, 55, 91-92, 124, 201. + 'Truandailies,' 40. + Truth, 37-38. + Turner, J.M.W., 152. + + UNITY, 23, 108, 113, 114, 199, + 202, 203, 211, 215 ff., 225, 252. + Université Libre, Brussels, 93. + Unknown, the, 3, 6, 69, 204, 207, + 212, 220, 224. + 'Un Matin,' 229. + 'Un Soir ' (_Au Bord de la Route_), 63, 68. + 'Un Soir' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_), 183, 186, 255. + Utopia, 109, 115, 167, 199. + + VANDERVELDE, EMIL, 93. + Vellay, Charles, 215-216. + Venice, 13. + + Verhaeren, Émile, born at St. Amand on the + Scheldt, 1855, 27; his boyhood, 27-28; educated at + the College of Sainte-Barbe in Ghent, 25-26; + studies jurisprudence at Louvain, 31; called to the + bar in Brussels, 32; his first verses, 32, 33, 145 + ff.; publication of _Les Flamandes,_ 33 ff.; + resides for three weeks in the monastery of + Forges, 46; publication of _Les Moines_, 45 ff.; + his health breaks down, 55 ff., 237; his illness + is described in _Les Soirs, Les Débâcles, Les + Flambeaux Noirs,_ and _Au Bord de la Route_, 57 + ff.; his travels, 55, 91-92, 124; he is obsessed + by the atmosphere of London, 55; his recovery is + symbolised in some of the poems of _Les Villages + Illusoires_, 70-71; his marriage, 94, 237 ff., 243; + his connection with the Labour Party and + Socialism, 89, 93-94; the Flemish element in his + style, 154-155; his technique, 141 ff.; stage + performances of his dramas, 164, 174-175; how he + recites his poetry, 122-123; he resides at + Caillou-qui-bique and Saint-Cloud, 30, 93, 246, + 248-249; his personal appearance, 67, 251; his + personality, 244 ff. + + Verlaine, Paul, 69, 120, 142, 144, 243. + 'Vers,' 60. + 'Vers la Mer,' 152. + 'Vers le Cloître,' 63. + 'Vers le Futur,' 104, 205, 207. + _Vers libre_, the, 74, 144 ff., 163. + _Vers ternaire, le_, 147. + Vielé-Griffin, Francis, 143, 246, 249. + Vienna, 91, 114, 174. + Vitality, 12, 15, 16, 19, 24, 32, + 33, 40, 43, 119, 131, 190, 200-202, + 206, 229, 248, 258. + + WAGNER, RICHARD, 37, 92. + Walloons, the, 14, 22. + Weyden, Roger van der, 43. + Whistler, J. M'Neill, 86. + Whitman, Walt, 24, 86, 108-109, + 115, 132, 134, 187, 190-191, + 227 257. + Will, the, 23, 60-62, 73-74, 133, + 181, 194-195, 198, 203, 212, + 223. + _Wisdom and Destiny_, 213. + Woman, 172-173, 192, 234 ff. + Women, Belgian, 17. + + YPRES, 21, 43. + + ZOLA, ÉMILE, 37. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Émile Verhaeren, by Stefan Zweig + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ÉMILE VERHAEREN *** + +***** This file should be named 35387-0.txt or 35387-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/3/8/35387/ + +Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/35387-0.zip b/old/35387-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..959ccfa --- /dev/null +++ b/old/35387-0.zip diff --git a/old/35387-8.txt b/old/35387-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bf38539 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/35387-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7561 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Émile Verhaeren, by Stefan Zweig + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Émile Verhaeren + +Author: Stefan Zweig + +Translator: Jethro Bithell + +Release Date: February 24, 2011 [EBook #35387] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ÉMILE VERHAEREN *** + + + + +Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org + + + + +EMILE VERHAEREN + +BY + +STEFAN ZWEIG + +LONDON + +CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LTD + +1914 + + + + +[Illustration: Émile Verhaeren from an unpublished photograph by +Charles Bernier, 1914.] + + + + +PREFACE + + +Four years have passed since the present volume appeared simultaneously +in German and French. In the meantime Verhaeren's fame has been +spreading; but in English-speaking countries he is still not so well +known as he deserves to be. + +Something of his philosophy--if it may be called philosophy rather than +a poet's inspired visualising of the world--has passed into the public +consciousness in a grotesquely distorted form in what is known as +'futurism.' So long as futurism is associated with those who have +acquired a facile notoriety by polluting the pure idea, it would be an +insult to Verhaeren to suggest that he is to be classed with the +futurists commonly so-called; but the whole purpose of the present +volume will prove that the gospel of a very serious and reasoned +futurism is to be found in Verhaeren's writings. + +Of the writer of the book it may be said that there was no one more +fitted than he to write the authentic exposition of the teaching which +he has hailed as a new religion. His relations to the Master are not +only those of a fervent disciple, but of an apostle whose labour of +love has in German-speaking lands and beyond been crowned with signal +success. Himself a lyrist of distinction, Stefan Zweig has accomplished +the difficult feat, which in this country still waits to be done, of +translating the great mass of Verhaeren's poems into actual and enduring +verse. Another book of his on Verlaine is already known in an English +rendering; so that he bids fair to become known in this country as one +of the most gifted of the writers of Young-Vienna. + +As to the translation, I have endeavoured to be faithful to my text, +which is the expression of a personality. Whatever divergences there are +have been necessitated by the lapse of time. For help in reading the +proofs I have to thank Mr. M.T.H. Sadler and Mr. Fritz Voigt. + + J. BITHELL. + + HAMMERFIELD, +_Nr_. HEMEL HEMPSTEAD, + 14_th July_ 1914. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +PART I + +THE NEW AGE +THE NEW BELGIUM +YOUTH IN FLANDERS +'LES FLAMANDES' +THE MONKS +THE BREAK-DOWN +FLIGHT INTO THE WORLD + +PART II + +TOWNS ('LES VILLES TENTACULAIRES') +THE MULTITUDE +THE RHYTHM OF LIFE +THE NEW PATHOS +VERHAEREN'S POETIC METHOD +VERHAEREN'S DRAMA + +PART III + +COSMIC POETRY +THE LYRIC UNIVERSE +SYNTHESES +THE ETHICS OF FERVOUR +LOVE +THE ART OF VERHAEREN'S LIFE +THE EUROPEAN IMPORTANCE OF HIS WORK + +BIBLIOGRAPHY +INDEX + + + +PART I + +DECIDING FORCES + +ES FLAMANDES--LES MOINES--LES SOIRS--LES + +DÉBâCLES--LES FLAMBEAUX NOIRS--AU BORD DE + +LA ROUTE--LES APPARUS DANS MES CHEMINS + +1883-1893 + + + + Son tempérament, son caractère, sa vie, tout conspire à nous + montrer son art tel que nous avons essayé de le définir. Une + profonde unité les scelle. Et n'est-ce pas vers la découverte de + cette unité-là, qui groupe en un faisceau solide les gestes, les + pensées et les travaux d'un génie sur la terre, que la critique, + revenue enfin de tant d'erreurs, devait tendre uniquement? + + VERHAEREN, _Rembrandt._ + + + + +THE NEW AGE + + Tout bouge--et l'on dirait les horizons en marche. + É.V., 'La Foule.' + + +The feeling of this age of ours, of this our moment in eternity, is +different in its conception of life from that of our ancestors. Only +eternal earth has changed not nor grown older, that field, gloomed by +the Unknown, on which the monotonous light of the seasons divides, in a +rhythmic round, the time of blossoms and of their withering; changeless +only are the action of the elements and the restless alternation of +night and day. But the aspect of earth's spirit has changed, all that is +subjected to the toil of man. Has changed, to change again. The +evolution of the phenomena of culture seems to proceed with ever greater +rapidity: never was the span of a hundred years as rich, as replete as +that which stretches to the threshold of our own days. Cities have shot +up which are as huge and bewildering, as impenetrable and as endless, as +nothing else has been save those virgin forests now fast receding before +the onward march of the tilled land. More and more the work of man +achieves the grandiose and elementary character that was once Nature's +secret. The lightning is in his hands, and protection from the +weather's sudden onslaughts; lands that once yawned far apart are now +forged together by the iron hoop with which of old only the narrow +strait was arched; oceans are united that have sought each other for +thousands of years; and now in the very air man is building a new road +from country to country. All has changed. + + Tout a changé: les ténèbres et les flambeaux. + Les droits et les devoirs out fait d'autres faisceaux, + Du sol jusqu'au soleil, une neuve énergie + Diverge un sang torride, en la vie élargie; + Des usines de fonte ouvrent, sous le ciel bleu, + Des cratères en flamme et des fleuves en feu; + De rapides vaisseaux, sans rameurs et sans voiles, + La nuit, sur les flots bleus, étonnent les étoiles; + Tout peuple réveillé se forge une autre loi; + Autre est le crime, autre est l'orgueil, autre est l'exploit.[1] + +Changed, too, is the relation of individual to individual, of the +individual to the whole; at once more onerous and less burdensome is the +network of social laws, at once more onerous and less burdensome our +whole life. + +But a still greater thing has happened. Not only the real forms, the +transitory facts of life have changed, not only do we live in other +cities, other houses, not only are we dressed in different clothes, but +the infinite above us too, that which seemed unshakable, has changed +from what it was for our fathers and forefathers. Where the actual +changes, the relative changes also. The most elementary forms of our +conception, space and time, have been displaced. Space has become other +than it was, for we measure it with new velocities. Roads that took our +forefathers days to traverse can now be covered in one short hour; one +flying night transports us to warm and luxuriant lands that were once +separated from us by the hardships of a long journey. The perilous +forests of the tropics with Jheir strange constellations, to see which +cost those of old a year of their lives, are of a sudden near to us and +easy of access. We measure differently with these different velocities +of life. Time is more and more the victor of space. The eye, too, has +learned other distances, and in cold constellations is startled to +perceive the forms of primeval landscapes petrified; and the human voice +seems to have grown a thousand times stronger since it has learned to +carry on a friendly conversation a hundred miles away. In this new +relationship of forces we have a different perception of the spanning +round of the earth, and the rhythm of life, beating more brightly and +swiftly, is likewise becoming new for us. The distance from springtime +to springtime is greater now and yet less, greater and yet less is the +individual hour, greater and less our whole life. + +And therefore is it with new feelings that we must comprehend this new +age. For we all feel that we must not measure the new with the old +measures our forefathers used, that we must not live through the new +with feelings outworn, that we must discover a new sense of distance, a +new sense of time, a new sense of space, that we must find a new music +for this nervous, feverish rhythm around us. This new-born human +conditionality calls for a new morality; this new union of equals a new +beauty; this new topsy-turvydom a new system of ethics. And this new +confrontation with another and still newer world, with another Unknown, +demands a new religion, a new God. A new sense of the universe is, with +a muffled rumour, welling up in the hearts of all of us. + +New things, however, must be coined into new words. A new age calls for +new poets, poets whose conceptions have been nurtured by their +environment, poets who, in the expression they give to this new +environment, themselves vibrate with the feverish rotation of life. But +so many of our poets are pusillanimous. They feel that their voices are +out of harmony with reality; they feel that they are not incorporated +with the new organism and a necessary part of it; they have a dull +foreboding that they do not speak the language of our contemporary life. +In our great cities they are like strangers stranded. The great roaring +streams of our new sensations are to them terrific and inconceivable. +They are ready to accept all the comfort and luxury of modern life; they +are quick to take advantage of the facilities afforded by technical +science and organisation; but for their poetry they reject these +phenomena, because they cannot master them. They recoil from the task +of transmuting poetical values, of sensing whatever is poetically new in +these new things. And so they stand aside. They flee from the real, the +contemporary, to the immutable; they take refuge in whatsoever the +eternal evolution has left untouched; they sing the stars, the +springtime, the babbling of springs which is now as it ever was, the +myth of love; they hide behind the old symbols; they nestle to the old +gods. Not from the moment, from the molten flowing ore, do they seize +and mould the eternal--no, as ever of old they dig the symbols of the +eternal out of the cold clay of the past, like old Greek statues. They +are not on that account insignificant; but at best they produce +something important, never anything necessary. + +For only that poet can be necessary to our time who himself feels that +everything in this time is necessary, and therefore beautiful. He must +be one whose whole endeavour as poet and man it is to make his own +sensations vibrate in unison with contemporary sensations; who makes the +rhythm of his poem nothing else than the echoed rhythm of living things; +who adjusts the beat of his verse to the beat of our own days, and takes +into his quivering veins the streaming blood of our time. He must not on +this account, when seeking to create new ideals, be a stranger to the +ideals of old; for all true progress is based on the deepest +understanding of the past. Progress must be for him as Guyau interprets +it: 'Le pouvoir, lorsqu'on est arrivé à un état supérieur, d'éprouver +des émotions et des sensations nouvelles, sans cesser d'être encore +accessible à ce que contenaient de grand ou de beau ses précédantes +émotions.'[2] A poet of our time can only be great when he conceives +this time as great. The preoccupations of his time must be his also; its +social problem must be his personal concern. In such a poet succeeding +generations would see how man has fought a way to them from the past, +how in every moment as it passed he has wrestled to identify the feeling +of his own mind with that of the cosmos. And even though the great works +of such a poet should be soon disintegrated and his poems obsolete, +though his images should have paled, there would yet remain imperishably +vivid that which is of greater moment, the invisible motives of his +inspiration, the melody, the breath, the rhythm of his time. Such poets, +besides pointing the way to the coming generation, are in a deeper sense +the incarnation of their own period. Hence the time has come to speak of +Émile Verhaeren, the greatest of modern poets, and perhaps the only one +who has been conscious of what is poetical in contemporary feeling, the +only one who has shaped that feeling in verse, the first poet who, with +skill incomparably inspired, has chiselled our epoch into a mighty +monument of rhyme. + +In Verhaeren's work our age is mirrored. The new landscapes are in it; +the sinister silhouettes of the great cities; the seething masses of a +militant democracy; the subterranean shafts of mines; the last heavy +shadows of silent, dying cloisters. All the intellectual forces of our +time, our time's ideology, have here become a poem; the new social +ideas, the struggle of industrialism with agrarianism, the vampire force +which lures the rural population from the health-giving fields to the +burning quarries of the great city, the tragic fate of emigrants, +financial crises, the dazzling conquests of science, the syntheses of +philosophy, the triumphs of engineering, the new colours of the +impressionists. All the manifestations of the new age are here reflected +in a poet's soul in their action--first confused, then understood, then +joyfully acclaimed--on the sensations of a New European. How this work +came into being, out of what resistance and crises a poet has here +conquered the consciousness of the necessity and then of the beauty of +the new cosmic phase, it shall be our task to show. If the time has +indeed come to class Verhaeren, it is not so much with the poets that +his place will be found. He does not so much stand with or above the +verse-smiths or actual artists in verse, with the musicians, or +painters, as rather with the great organisers, those who have forced the +new social currents to flow between dikes; with the legislators who +prevent the clashing of flamboyant energies; with the philosophers, who +aim at co-ordinating and unifying all these vastly complicated +tendencies in one brilliant synthesis. His poetry is a created poet's +world; it is a resolute shaping of phases, a considered new æstheticism, +and a conscious new inspiration. He is not only the poet, he is at the +same time the preacher of our time. He was the first to conceive of it +as _beautiful_, but not like those who, in their zeal for embellishment, +tone down the dark colours and bring out the bright ones; he has +conceived of it--we shall have to show with what a painful and intensive +effort--after his first most obstinate rejection of it, as a necessity, +and he has then transformed this conception of its necessity, of its +purpose, into beauty. Ceasing to look backwards, he has looked forwards. +He feels, quite in the spirit of evolution, in the spirit of Nietzsche, +that our generation is raised high above all the past, that it is the +summit of all that is past, and the turning-point towards the future. +This will perhaps seem too much to many people, who are inclined to call +our generation wretched and paltry, as though they had some inner +knowledge of the magnificence or the paltriness of generations gone. For +every generation only becomes great by the men who do not despair of it, +only becomes great by its poets who conceive of it as great, by its +charioteers of state who have confidence in its power of greatness. Of +Shakespeare and Hugo Verhaeren says: 'Ils grandissaient leur +siècle.'[3] They did not depict it with the perspective of others, but +out of the heart of their own greatness. Of such geniuses as Rembrandt +he says: 'Si plus tard, dans l'éloignement des siècles, ils semblent +traduire mieux que personne leur temps, c'est qu'ils l'ont recréé +d'après leur cerveau, et qu'ils l'ont imposé non pas tel qu'il était, +mais tel qu'ils l'ont déformé.'[4] But by magnifying their century, by +raising even ephemeral events of their own days into a vast perspective, +they themselves became great. While those who of set purpose diminish, +and while those by nature indifferent, are themselves diminished and +disregarded as the centuries recede, poets such as these we honour tell, +like illumined belfry clocks, the hour of the time to generations yet to +come. If the others bequeath some slight possession, a poem or so, +aphorisms, a book maybe, these survive more mightily: they survive in +some great conception, some great idea of an age, in that music of life +to which the faint-hearted and the ungifted of following epochs will +listen as it sounds from the past, because they in their turn are unable +to understand the rhythm of their own time. By this manner of inspired +vision Verhaeren has come to be the great poet of our time, by approving +of it as well as by depicting it, by the fact that he did not see the +new things as they actually are, but celebrated them as a new beauty. +He has approved of all that is in our epoch; of everything, to the very +resistance to it which he has conceived of as only a welcome +augmentation of the fighting force of our vitality. The whole atmosphere +of our time seems compressed in the organ music of his work; and whether +he touches the bright keys or the dark, whether he rolls out a lofty +diapason or strikes a gentle concord, it is always the onward-rushing +force of our time that vibrates in his poems. While other poets have +grown ever more lifeless and languid, ever more secluded and +disheartened, Verhaeren's voice has grown ever more resonant and +vigorous, like an organ indeed, full of reverence and the mystical power +of sublime prayer. A spirit positively religious, not of despondency, +however, but of confidence and joy, breathes from this music of his, +freshening and quickening the blood, till the world takes on brighter +and more animated and more generous colours, and our vitality, fired by +the fever of his verse, flashes with a richer and younger and more +virile flame. + +But the fact that life, to-day of all days, needs nothing so urgently as +the freshening and quickening of our vitality, is good reason why--quite +apart from all literary admiration--we must read his books, is good +reason why this poet must be discussed with all that glad enthusiasm +which we have first learned for our lives from his work. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] 'Aujourd'hui'(_Les Héros_). + +[2] Guyau, _L'Esthétique Contemporaine._ + +[3] 'L'Art' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[4] _Rembrandt_. + + + + +THE NEW BELGIUM + + Entre la France ardente et la grave Allemagne. + _É.V._, 'Charles le Téméraire.' + + +In Belgium the roads of Europe meet. A few hours transport one from +Brussels, the heart of its iron arteries, to Germany, France, Holland, +and England; and from Belgian ports all countries and all races are +accessible across the pathless sea. The area of the land being small, it +provides a miniature but infinitely varied synthesis of the life of +Europe. All contrasts stand face to face concisely and sharply outlined. +The train roars through the land: now past coal-mines, past furnaces and +retorts that write the fiery script of toil on an ashen sky; now through +golden fields or green pastures where sleek, brindled cows are grazing; +now through great cities that point to heaven with their multitudinous +chimneys; and lastly to the sea, the Rialto of the north, where +mountains of cargoes are shipped and unshipped, and trade traffics with +a thousand hands. Belgium is an agricultural land and an industrial +land; it is at the same time conservative and socialistic, Roman +Catholic and free-thinking; at once wealthy and wretched. There are +colossal fortunes heaped up in the monster cities; and two hours thence +the bitterest poverty sweats for the dole of a living in mines and +barns. And again in the cities still greater forces wrestle with one +another: life and death, the past and the future. Towns monkishly +secluded, girt with ponderous mediæval walls, towns on whose swart and +sedgy canals lonely swans glide like milky gondolas, towns like a dream, +strengthless, prisoned in sleep eternal. At no great distance glitter +the modern residential cities; Brussels with its glaring boulevards, +where electric inscriptions dart coruscating up and down the fronts of +buildings, where motor-cars whiz along, where the streets rumble, and +modern life twitches with feverish nerves. Contrast on contrast. From +the right the Teutonic tide dashes in, the Protestant faith; from the +left, sumptuous and rigidly orthodox, Roman Catholicism. And the race +itself is the restlessly struggling product of two races, the Flemish +and the Walloon. Naked, clear, and direct are the contrasts which here +defy each other; and the whole battle can be surveyed at a glance. + +But so strong, so persistent is the inexorable pressure of the two +neighbouring races, that this blend has already become a new ferment, a +new race. Elements once contrary are now unrecognisably mixed in a new +and growing product. Teutons speak French, people of Romance stock are +Flemish in feeling. Pol de Mont, in spite of his Gallic name, is a +Flemish poet; Verhaeren, Maeterlinck, and van Lerberghe, though no +Frenchman can pronounce their names rightly, are French poets. And this +new Belgian race is a strong race, one of the most capable in Europe. +Contact with so many foreign cultures, the vicinity of such +contradictory nations, has fertilised them; healthy rural labour has +steeled their limbs; the near sea has opened their eyes to the great +distances. Their consciousness of themselves is of no long date: it can +only be reckoned from the time when their country became independent, +hardly a hundred years ago. A nation younger than America, they are in +their adolescence now, and rejoicing in their new, unsought strength. +And just as in America, the blend of races here, together with the +fruitful, healthy fields, has procreated robust men. For the Belgian +race is a race pulsing with vitality. Nowhere in Europe is life so +intensely, so merrily enjoyed as in Flanders, nowhere else is sensuality +and pleasure in excess so much the measure of strength. They must be +seen particularly in their sensual life; it must be seen how the Flemish +enjoy; with what greediness, with what a conscious pleasure and robust +endurance. It is among them that Jordaens found the models for his +gluttonous orgies; and they could be found still at every kermesse, at +every wake. Statistics prove that in the consumption of alcohol Belgium +stands to-day at the head of Europe. Every second house is an inn, an +_estaminet_; every town, every village has its brewery; and the brewers +are the wealthiest men in the country. Nowhere else are festivals so +loud, boisterous, and unbridled; nowhere else is life loved and lived +with such a superabundant zest and glow. Belgium is the land of +excessive vitality, and ever was so. They have fought for this plenitude +of life, for this enjoyment full to satiety. Their most heroic exploit, +their great war with the Spaniards, was only a struggle not so much for +religion as for sensual freedom. These desperate revolts, this immense +effort was in reality not directed against Roman Catholicism, but +against the morality, the asceticism it enforced; not so much against +Spain as against the sinister malignity of the Inquisition; against the +taciturn, bitter, and insidious Puritanism which sought to curtail +enjoyment; against the morose reserve of Philip II. All that they wanted +at that time was to preserve their bright and laughing life, their free, +dionysiac enjoyment, the imperious avidity of their senses; they were +determined not to be limited by any measure short of excess. And with +them life conquered. Health, strength, and fecundity is to this very day +the mark of the Belgian people in town and country. Poverty itself is +not hollow-cheeked and stunted here. Chubby, red-cheeked children play +in the streets; the peasants working in the fields are straight and +sturdy; even the artisans are as muscular and strong as they are in +Constantin Meunier's bronzes; the women are moulded to bear children +easily; the unbroken vigour of the old men persists in a secure defiance +of age. Constantin Meunier was fifty when he began his life-work here; +at sixty Verhaeren is at the zenith of his creative power. Insatiable +seems the strength of this race, whose deepest feeling has been +chiselled by Verhaeren in proud stanzas: + + Je suis le fils de cette race, + Dont les cerveaux plus que les dents + Sont solides et sont ardents + Et sont voraces. + Je suis le fils de cette race + Tenace, + Qui veut, après avoir voulu + Encore, encore et encore plus![1] + +This tremendous exertion has not been in vain. To-day Belgium is +relatively the richest country in Europe. Its colony of the Congo is ten +times as extensive as the mother-land. The Belgians hardly know where to +place their capital: Belgian money is invested in Russia, in China, in +Japan; they are concerned in all enterprises; their financiers control +trusts in all countries. The middle classes, too, are healthy, strong, +and contented. + +Such rich and healthy blood is more likely than any other to produce +good art, and, above all, art full of the zest of life. For it is in +countries with few possibilities of expansion that the desire for +artistic activity is keenest. The imagination of great nations is for +the most part absorbed by the practical demands of their development. +The best strength of a great nation is claimed by politics, by +administration, by the army and navy; but where political life is of +necessity poor, where the problems of administration are forcibly +restricted, men of genius almost exclusively seek their conquests in the +domains of art. Scandinavia is one example, Belgium another, of +countries in which the aristocracy of intellect have with the happiest +results been forced back on art and science. In such young races the +vital instinct must _a priori_ make all artistic activity strong and +healthy; and even when they produce a decadence, this reaction, this +contradiction, is so decided and consequent, that strength lies in its +very weakness. For only a strong light can cast strong shadows; only a +strong, sensual race can bring forth the really great and earnest +mystics; because a decided reaction which is conscious of its aim +requires as much energy as positive creation. + +The towering structure of Belgian art rests on a broad foundation. The +preparation, the growing under the sod, took fifty years; and then in +another fifty years it was reared aloft by the youth of one single +generation. For every healthy evolution is slow, most of all in the +Teutonic races, which are not so quick, supple, and dexterous as the +Latin races, who learn by life itself rather than by studious +application. This literature has grown ring by ring like a tree, with +its roots deep in a healthy soil nourished by the unyielding +perseverance of centuries. Like every confession of faith, this +literature has its saints, its martyrs, and its disciples. The first of +the creators, the forerunner, was Charles de Coster; and his great epic +_Thyl Ulenspiegel_ is the gospel of this new literature. His fate is +sad, like that of all pioneers. In him the native blend of races is more +plastically visualised than in all later writers. Of Teutonic +extraction, he was born in Munich, wrote in French, and was the first +man to feel as a Belgian. He earned his living painfully as a teacher at +the Military School. And when his great romance appeared, it was +difficult to find a publisher, and still more difficult to find +appreciation, or even notice. And yet this work, with its wonderful +confrontation of Ulenspiegel as the deliverer of Flanders with Philip +II. as Antichrist, is to this day the most beautiful symbol of the +struggle of light with darkness, of vitality with renunciation; an +enduring monument in the world's literature, because it is the epic of a +whole nation. With such a work of wide import did Belgian literature +begin, a work that with its heroic battles stands like the Iliad as the +proud and primitive beginning of a more delicate, but in its advanced +culture more complex, literature. The place of this writer, who died +prematurely, was taken by Camille Lemonnier, who accepted the hard task +and the melancholy inheritance of pioneers--ingratitude and +disillusion. Of this proud and noble character also one must speak as of +a hero. For more than forty years he fought indefatigably for Belgium, a +soldier leading the onset from first to last, launching book after book, +creating, writing, calling to the fray and marshalling the new forces; +and never resting till the adjective 'Belgian' ceased in Paris and +Europe to be spoken with the contempt that attaches to 'provincial'; +till, like once the name of the Gueux, what was originally a disgrace +became a title of honour. Fearlessly, not to be discouraged by any +failure, this superb writer sung his native land--fields, mines, towns, +and men; the angry, fiery blood of youths and maidens; and over all the +ardent yearning for a brighter, freer, greater religion, for rapt +communion with the sublimity of Nature. With the ecstatic revelling in +colour of his illustrious ancestor Rubens, who gathered all the things +of life together in a glad festival of the senses, he, like a second +voluptuary at the feast, has lavished colours, had his joy of all that +is glowing, and glaring, and satiated, and, like every genuine artist, +conceived of art as an intensifying of life, as life in intoxication. +For more than forty years he created in this sense, and miraculously, +just like the men of his country, like the peasants he painted, he +waxed in vigour from year to year, from harvest to harvest, his books +growing ever more fiery, ever more drunken with the zest and glow of +life, his faith in life ever brighter and more confident. He was the +first to feel the strength of his young country with conscious pride, +and his voice rang out its loud appeal for new fighters till he no +longer stood alone, till a company of other artists were ranged around +him. Each of these he supported and firmly established, with a strong +grip placing them at their vantage for the battle; and without envy, nay +with joy, he saw his own work triumphantly overshadowed by the acclaimed +creations of his juniors. With joy, because he probably considered not +his own novels, but this creation of a literature his greatest and most +lasting work. For it seemed as though in these years the whole land had +become alive; as though every town, every profession, every class had +sent forth a poet or a painter to immortalise them; as though this whole +Belgium were eager to be symbolised in individual phases in works of +art, until he should come who was destined to transform all towns and +classes in a poem, enshrining in it the harmonised soul of the land. Are +not the ancient Teutonic cities of Bruges, Courtrai, and Ypres +spiritualised in the stanzas of Rodenbach, in the pastels of Fernand +Khnopff, in the mystic statues of Georges Minne? Have not the sowers of +corn and the workers in mines become stone in the busts of Constantin +Meunier? Does not a great drunkenness glow in Georges Eekhoud's +descriptions? The mystic art of Maeterlinck and Huysmans drinks its +deepest strength from old cloisters and _béguinages_; the sun of the +fields of Flanders glows in the pictures of Théo van Rysselberghe and +Claus. The delicate walking of maidens and the singing of belfries have +been made music in the stanzas of the gentle Charles van Lerberghe; the +vehement sensuality of a savage race has been spiritualised in the +refined eroticism of Félicien Rops. The Walloons have their +representative in Albert Mockel; and how many others might still be +named of the great creators: the sculptor van der Stappen; the painters +Heymans, Stevens; the writers des Ombiaux, Demolder, Glesener, +Crommelynck; who have all in their confident and irresistible advance +conquered the esteem of France and the admiration of Europe. For they, +and just they, were gifted with a sense of the great complex European +feeling which in their work is glimpsed in its birth and growth; for +they did not in their idea of a native land stop at the boundaries of +Belgium, but included all the neighbouring countries, because they were +at the same time patriots and cosmopolitans: Belgium was to them not +only the place where all roads meet, but also that whence all roads +start. + +Each of these had shaped his native land from his own angle of vision; a +whole phalanx of artists had added picture to picture. Till then this +great one came, Verhaeren, who saw, felt, and loved everything in +Flanders, 'toute la Flandre.' Only in his work did it become a unity; +for he has sung everything, land and sea, towns and workshops, cities +dead and cities at their birth. He has not conceived of this Flanders of +his as a separate phase, as a province, but as the heart of Europe, with +the strength of its blood pulsing inwards from outside and outside from +inwards; he has opened out horizons beyond the frontiers, and heightened +and connected them; and with the same inspiration he has molten and +welded the individual together with the whole until out of his work a +life-work grew--the lyric epic of Flanders. What de Coster half a +century before had not dared to fashion from the present, in which he +despaired of finding pride, power, and the heroism of life, Verhaeren +has realised; and thus he has become the 'carillonneur de la Flandre,' +the bell-ringer who, as in olden days from the watch-tower, has summoned +the whole land to the defence of its will to live, and the nation to the +pride and consciousness of its power. + +This Verhaeren could only do, because he in himself represents all the +contrasts, all the advantages of the Belgian race. He too is a ferment +of contrasts, a new man made of split and divergent forces now +victoriously harmonised. From the French he has his language and his +form; from the Germans his instinctive seeking of God, his earnestness, +his gravity, his need of metaphysics, and his impulse to pantheism. +Political instincts, religious instincts, Catholicism and socialism, +have struggled in him; he is at once a dweller in great cities and a +cottager in the open country; and the deepest impulse of his people, +their lack of moderation and their greed of life, is in the last +instance the maxim of his poetic art. Only that their pleasure in +intoxication has in him become joy in a noble drunkenness, in ecstasy; +only that their carnal joy has become a delight in colour; that their +mad raging is now in him a pleasure in a rhythm that roars and thunders +and bursts in foam. The deepest thing in his race, an inflexible +vitality which is not to be shaken by crises or catastrophes, has in him +become universal law, a conscious, intensified zest in life. For when a +country has become strong and rejoices in its strength, it needs, like +every plethora, a cry, an exultation. Just as Walt Whitman was the +exultation of America in its new strength, Verhaeren is the triumph of +the Belgian race, and of the European race too. For this glad confession +of life is so strong, so glowing, so virile that it cannot be thought of +as breaking forth from the heart of one individual, but is evidently the +delight of a fresh young nation in its beautiful and yet unfathomed +power. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] 'Ma Race' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + + + + +YOUTH IN FLANDERS + + Seize, dix-sept et dix-huit ans! + O ce désir d'être avant l'âge et le vrai temps + Celui + Dont chacun dit + Il boit à larges brocs et met à mal les filles! + É.V., _Les Tendresses Premières_. + +The history of modern Belgian literature begins, by a whim of chance, in +one and the same house. In Ghent, the favourite city of the Emperor +Charles V., in the old, heavy Flemish town that is still girdled with +ramparts, lies, remote from the noisy streets, the grey Jesuit college +of Sainte-Barbe. A cloister with thick, cold, frowning walls, mute +corridors, silent refectories, reminding one somewhat of the beautiful +colleges in Oxford, save that here there is no ivy softening the walls, +and no flowers to lay their variegated carpet over the green courts. +Here, in the seventies, two strange pairs of boys meet on the +school-benches; here among thousands of names are four which are +destined in later days to be the pride of their country. First, Georges +Rodenbach and Émile Verhaeren, then Maeterlinck and Charles van +Lerberghe--two pairs of friendships, both of which are now torn asunder +by death. The weaker, the more delicate of the four, Georges Rodenbach +and Charles van Lerberghe, have died; Emile Verhaeren and Maeterlinck, +the two heroes of Flanders, are still growing and not yet at the zenith +of their fame. But all four began their course in the old college. The +Jesuit fathers taught them their humanities, and even to write poems--in +Latin, it is true, to begin with; and in this exercise, strange to say, +Maeterlinck was excelled by van Lerberghe with his more instinctive +sense of form, and Verhaeren by the more supple Georges Rodenbach. With +rigorous earnestness the fathers trained them to respect the past, to +have faith in conventional things, to think in old grooves, and to hate +innovations. The aim was not only to keep them Catholics, but to win +them for the priesthood: these cloister walls were to protect them from +the hostile breath of the new world, from the freshening wind which, in +Flanders as everywhere else, was assailing the growing generation. + +But in these four pupils the aim was not realised, least of all in +Verhaeren, perhaps for the very reason that he, as the scion of a +strictly orthodox family, was the most fitted to be a priest; because +his mind did not absorb conviction mechanically, but achieved it by +vital processes; because his inmost being was self-surrender and a +glowing devotion to great ideas. However, the call of the open country, +in which he had grown up, was too strong in him; the voice of life was +too loud in his blood for so early a renunciation of all; his mind was +too tameless to be satisfied with the established and the traditional. +The impressions of his childhood were more vivid than the teaching of +his masters. For Verhaeren was born in the country, at St. Amand on the +Scheldt (on the 21st of May 1855), where the landscape rolls to the vast +horizons of the heath and the sea. Here in the happiest manner kindly +circumstances wove the garland of his earlier years. His parents were +well-to-do people who had retired from the din of the town to this +little corner of Flanders; here they had a cottage of their own, with a +front garden ablaze with flowers of all colours. And immediately behind +the house began the great golden fields, the tangle of flowering +hedgerows; and close by was the river with its slow waves hasting no +longer, feeling the nearness of their goal, the infinite ocean. Of the +untrammelled days of his boyhood the ageing poet has told us in his +wonderful book _Les Tendresses Premières_. He has told us of the boy he +was when he ran across country; clambered into the corn-loft where the +glittering grain was heaped; climbed steeples; watched the peasants at +their sowing and reaping; and listened to the maids at the washing-tub +singing old Flemish songs. He watched all trades; he rummaged in every +corner. He would sit with the watch-maker, marvelling at the humming +little wheels that fashioned the hour; and no less to see the glowing +maw of the oven in the bakery swallowing the corn which only the day +before had glided through his fingers in rustling ears, and was now +already bread, golden, warm, and odorous. At games he would watch in +astonishment the glad strength of the young fellows tumbling the reeling +skittles over; and he would wander with the playing band from village to +village, from fair to fair. And, sitting on the bank of the Scheldt, he +would watch the ships, with their coloured streamers, come and go, and +in his dreams follow them to the vast distances, which he only knew from +sailors' yarns and pictures in old books. All this, this daily physical +familiarity with the things of Nature, this lived insight into the +thousand activities of the working-day, became his inalienable +possession. Inalienable, too, was the humane feeling he acquired that he +was one at heart with the people of his village. From them he learned +the names of all these thousand things, and the intelligence of the +mysterious mechanism in all skilled handiwork, and all the petty cares +and perplexities of these many scattered little souls of life which, +combined, are the soul of a whole land. And therefore Verhaeren is the +only one among modern poets in the French tongue who is really popular +with his countrymen of all ranks. He still goes in and out among them as +their equal, sits in their circle even now, when fame has long since +shown him his place among the best and noblest, chats with the peasants +in the village inn, and loves to hear them discussing the weather and +the harvest and the thousand little things of their narrow world. He +belongs to them, and they belong to him. He loves their life, their +cares, their labour, loves this whole land with its tempests raging from +the north, with its hail and snow, its thundering sea and lowering +clouds. It is with pride that he claims kindred with his race and land; +and indeed there is often in his gait and in his gestures something of +the peasant trampling with heavy steps and hard knee after his plough; +and his eyes 'are grey as his native sea, his hair is yellow like the +corn of his fields.' These elemental forces are in his whole being and +production. You feel that he has never lost touch with Nature, that he +is still organically connected with the fields, the sea, the open air; +he to whom spring is physically painful, who is depressed by relaxing +air, who loves the weather of his home-land, its vehemence, and its +savage, tameless strength. + +For this very reason he has in later years felt, what was natively +uncongenial to him--the great cities--differently and far more intensely +than poets brought up in them. What to the latter appeared self-evident +was to him astonishment, abomination, terror, admiration, and love. For +him the atmosphere we breathe in cities was heavy, stifling, poisoned; +the streets between the massed houses were too narrow, too congested; +hourly, at first in pain and then with admiration, he has felt the +beautiful fearfulness of the vast dimensions, the strangeness of the new +forms of life. Just as we walk through mountain ravines dumbfounded and +terrified by their sublimity, he has walked through streets of cities, +first slowly accustoming himself to them; thus he has explored them, +described them, celebrated them, and in the deepest sense lived them. +Their fever has streamed into his blood; their revolts have reared in +him like wild horses; their haste and unrest has whipped his nerves for +half the span of a man's life. But then he has returned home again. In +his fifties he has taken refuge once more in his fields, under the +lonely sky of Flanders. He lives in a lonely cottage somewhere in +Belgium, where the railway does not reach, enjoying himself among +cheerful and simple people who fill their days with plain labour, like +the friends and companions of his boyhood. With a joy intensified he +goes eagerly year by year to the sea, as though his lungs and his heart +needed it to breathe strongly again, to feel life with more jubilant +enthusiasm. In the man of sixty there is a wonderful return of his +healthy, happy childhood; and to the Flanders that inspired his first +verses his last have been dedicated. + +Against this atavism, against this bright and inalienable joy in life, +the _patres_ of Sainte-Barbe could do nothing. They could only deflect +his great hunger of life from material things, and turn it in the +direction of science, of art. The priest they sought to make of him he +has really become, only he has preached everything that they proscribed, +and fought against everything that they praised. At the time Verhaeren +leaves school, he is already filled with that noble yet feverish greed +of life, that tameless yearning for intensive enjoyments heightened to +the degree of pain which is so characteristic of him. The priesthood was +repugnant to him. Nor was he more allured by the prospect, held out to +him, of directing his uncle's workshop. It is not yet definitely the +poetic vocation which appeals to him, but he does desire a free active +calling with unlimited possibilities. To gain time for his final +decision, he studies jurisprudence, and becomes a barrister. In these +student years in Louvain Verhaeren gave free rein to his untameable zest +in life; as a true Fleming he eschewed moderation and launched into +intemperance. To this very day he is fond of telling of his liking for. +good Belgian beer, and of how the students got drunk, danced at all the +kermesses, caroused and feasted, when the fury came over them, and got +into all kinds, of mischief, which often enough brought them into +conflict with the police. Uncertainty was never a feature of his +character, and so his Roman Catholicism was in those years no silent and +impersonal faith, but a militant orthodoxy. A handful of hotspurs--the +publisher Deman was one of them, and another was the tenor van Dyck--set +a newspaper going, in which they lashed away mercilessly at the +corruption of the modern world, and did not forget to blow their own +trumpets. The university was not slow to veto these immature +manifestations; but ere long they started a second periodical, which +was, however, more in harmony with the great contemporary movements. +Betweenwhiles verses were written. And still more passionate is the +young poet's activity when, in the year 1881, he is called to the bar in +Brussels. Here he makes friends with men of great vitality: he is +welcomed by a circle of painters and artists, and a cénacle of young +talents is formed who have the authentic enthusiasm for art, and who +feel that they are violently opposed to the conservative bourgeoisie of +Brussels. Verhaeren, who at this time greedily adopts all fashionable +freakishness as something new, and struts about in fantastic apparel, +promptly acquires notoriety by his vehement passionateness and his first +literary attempts. He had begun to write verse in his school-days. +Lamartine had been his model, then Victor Hugo, who bewitches young +people, that lord of magnificent gestures, that undisputed master of +words. These juvenilia of Verhaeren have never been published, and +probably they have little interest, for in them his tameless vitality +attempted expression in immaculate Alexandrines. More and more, as his +artistic insight grew, he felt that his vocation was to be a poet; the +meagre success he achieved as a barrister confirmed him in this +conviction, and so in the end, following the advice of Edmond Picard, he +discarded the barrister's gown, which now seemed to him as narrow and +stifling as he had once thought the priest's cassock to be. + +And then came the hour, the first decisive hour. Lemonnier was as fond +of relating it as is Verhaeren; both would speak of it with their +fervent, proud joy in a friendship of over thirty years; both with +heartfelt admiration, the one for the other. Once, it was a rainy day, +Verhaeren burst in on Lemonnier, whom he did not know, trampling into +the elder man's lodging with his heavy peasant's tread, hailing him with +his hearty gesture, and blurting out: 'Je veux vous lire des vers!' It +was the manuscript of his first book _Les Flamandes_; and now he +recited, while the rain poured down outside, with his hard voice and +sharp scansion, his great enthusiasm and his compelling gestures, those +pictures, palpitating with life, of Flanders, that first free confession +of patriotism and foaming vitality. And Lemonnier encouraged him, +congratulated him, helped him, and suggested alterations, and soon the +book appeared, to the terror of Verhaeren's strictly orthodox family, to +the horror of the critics, who were helpless in the face of such an +explosion of strength. Execrated and lauded, it immediately compelled +interest. In Belgium, it is true, it was less acclaimed than declaimed +against; but nevertheless it everywhere excited a commotion, and that +grumbling unrest which always heralds the advent of a new force. + + + + +'LES FLAMANDES' + + Je suis le fils de cette race + Tenace, + Qui veut, après avoir voulu + Encore, encore et encore plus. + É.V., _Ma Race_. + +The life-work of great artists contains not only a single, but a +threefold work of art. The actual creation is only the first, and not +always the most important; the second must be the life of the artists +themselves; the third must be the harmoniously finished, organically +connected relationship between the act of creating and the thing +created, between poetry and life. To survey how inner growth is +connected with external formation, how crises of physical reality are +connected with artistic decadence, how development and completion +interpenetrate as much in personal experience as in the artistic +creation, must be an equal artistic rapture, must disengage as pure a +line of beauty as the individual work. In Verhaeren these conditions of +the threefold work of art are accomplished in full. Harsh and abrupt as +the contrasts in his books seem to be, the totality of his development +is yet rounded off to a clear line, to the figure of a circle. In the +beginning the end was contained, and in the end the beginning: the bold +curve returns to itself. Like one who travels round the world and +circles the vast circumference of the globe, he comes back in the end to +his starting-point. Beginning and end touch in the motive of his work. +To the country to which his youth belonged his old age returns: Flanders +inspired his first book, and to Flanders his last books are dedicated. + +True it is, between these two books _Les Flamandes_ and _Les Blés +Mouvants_, between the work of the man of five-and-twenty and that of +the man of sixty, lies the world of an evolution with, all its points of +view and achievements. Only now, when the line that was at first so +capricious has returned to itself, can its form be surveyed and its +harmony perceived. A purely external observation has become penetration: +the eye no longer exclusively regards the external phenomena of things, +but all has been seized in his soul from within and imaged in accordance +with its reality. Now nothing is seen isolated, from the point of view +of curiosity or passing interest, but everything is looked upon as +something that is, that has grown, and that is still growing. The motive +is the same in the first and in the last books; only, in the first book +we have isolated contemplation, while in the great creations of the last +period the vast horizons of the modern world are set behind the scenes, +with the shadows of the past on the one side, and, as well, with fiery +presentiments of the future shedding a new light over the landscape. +The painter, who only portrayed the outer surface, the patina, has +developed into the poet, he who in a musical vibration vivifies the +psychic and the inconceivable. These two works stand in the same +relation to each other as Wagner's first operas, _Rienzi_ and +_Tannhäuser_, do to his later creations, to the _Ring_ and _Parsifal_: +what was at first only intuitive becomes consciously creative. And as in +Wagner's case, so too with Verhaeren there are to this very day people +who prefer the works that are still prisoned in the traditional form to +those which were created later, and who are thus, in reality, greater +strangers to the poet than those who, from principle, assume a hostile +attitude to his artistic work. + +_Les Flamandes_, Verhaeren's first work, appeared in a period of +literary commotion. Zola's realistic novels had just become the object +of discussion; and they had stirred up, not France only, but the +adjacent countries as well. In Belgium Camille Lemonnier was the +interpreter of this new naturalism, which regarded absolute truth as +more important than beauty, and which saw the sole aim of imaginative +literature in photography, in the exact, scientifically accurate +reproduction of reality. To-day, now that excessive naturalism has been +overcome, we know that this theory only brings us half-way along the +road; that beauty may live by the side of truth; that on the other hand +truth is not identical with art, but that it was only necessary to +establish a transmutation of the value of beauty; that it was in the +actual, in realities, that beauty was to be sought. Every new theory, if +it is to succeed, needs a strong dose of exaggeration. And the idea of +realising reality in poetry seduced young Verhaeren into carefully +avoiding, in the description of his native province, all that is +sentimental and romantic, and deluded him with the hope of expressing in +his verse only what is coarse, primitive, and savage. Something external +and something internal, nature and intention, combined to cause this +effect. For the hatred of all that is soft and weak, rounded off and in +repose, is in Verhaeren's blood. His temperament was from the first +fiery, and loved to respond to strong provocation with a violent blow. +There was ever in him a love of the brutal, the hard, the rough, the +angular; he had always a liking for what is glaring and intensive, loud +and noisy. It is only in his latest books that, thanks to his cooler +blood, he has attained classical perfection and purity. In those days, +moreover, his hatred of sentimental idealisation, the hatred that in +Germany fulminated against Defregger's drawing-room Tyrolese, Auerbach's +scented peasants, and the spruce mythology of poetical pictures, led him +deliberately to emphasise what is brutal, unæsthetic, and, as it was +then felt, unpoetical; led him, as it were, to trample with heavy shoes +in the tedious footsteps of French poets. Barbarian: this was the word +they tried to kill him with, not so much on account of the harshness and +coarseness of his diction, which often reminds one of the guttural +sounds of German, as because of the savage selection of his instinct, +which always preferred what is ringingly resonant and ferociously alive, +which never fed on nectar and ambrosia, but tore red and steaming shreds +of flesh from the body of life. And genuinely barbarous, savage with +Teutonic strength, is this his inroad into French literature, reminding +one of those migrations of the Teutons into the Latin lands, where they +rushed ponderously to battle with wild and raucous cries, to learn, +after a time, a higher culture and the finer instincts of life from +those they had conquered. Verhaeren in this book does not describe what +is amiable and dreamy in Flanders, not idylls, but 'les fureurs +d'estomac, de ventre et de débauche,'[1] ail the explosions of the lust +of life, the orgies of peasants, and even of the animal world. Before +him, his old schoolfellow Rodenbach had described Flanders to the French +in poems that sounded gently with a silvery note, like the peal of +belfries hovering over roofs; he had reminded them of that unforgettable +melancholy of the evening over the canals of Bruges, of the magic of the +moonlight over fields framed with dikes and hedges of willows. But +Verhaeren closes his ears to hints of death; he describes life at its +maddest, 'le décor monstrueux des grasses kermesses,'[2] popular +festivals, in which intoxication and sensual pleasure sting the +unbridled strength of the crowd, in which the demands of the body and +the greed of money come into conflict, and the bestial nature of man +overthrows the painfully learned lessons of morality. And even in these +descriptions, which often teem with the exuberance of Rabelais, one +feels that even this explosive life is not mad enough for him, that he +yearns to intensify life out and beyond reality: 'jadis les gars avaient +les reins plus fermes et les garces plus beau téton.'[3] These young +fellows are too weak for him, the wenches too gentle; he cries for the +Flanders of olden time, as it lives in the glowing pictures of Rubens +and Jordaens and Breughel. These are his true masters, they, the +revellers, who created their masterpieces between two orgies, whose +laughter and feasting ring into the motives of their pictures. Some of +the poems in _Les Flamandes_ are direct imitations of certain interiors +and sensual genre-pictures: lads afire with lust forcing wenches under +the hedges; peasants in their drunken jubilation dancing round the inn +table. His desire is to sing that superabundance of vitality which +relieves itself by excess, excess flung into excess, even in sensual +pleasures. And his own colours and words, which are laid on with lavish +profusion and flow along in liquid fire, are themselves a debauch, a +'rut' (a favourite word of his). This vaunting display of seething +pictures is nothing less than an orgy. A terrific sensuality rages to +exhaustion as much in the execution as in the motive, a delight in these +creatures who have the madness of rutting stallions, who root about in +odorous meats and in the flowering flesh of women, who of set purpose +gorge themselves with beer and wine, and then in the dance and in +embraces discharge all the fire they have swallowed. Now and again a +reposeful picture alternates, firmly fixed in the dark frame of a +sonnet. But the hot wave streams over these breathing-spaces, and again +the mood is that of Rubens and of Jordaens, those mighty revellers. + +But naturalistic art is pictorial, not poetic. And it is the great +defect of this book that it was written by an inspired painter only, not +yet by a poet. The words are coloured, but they are not free; they do +not yet rock themselves in their own rhythm; they do not yet storm along +to soar aloft with the inspiration; they are wild horses regularly +trotting along in the shafts of the Alexandrine. There is a disparity +between the inner intractability and the external regularity of these +poems. The ore has not yet been molten long enough in the crucible of +life to burst the hereditary mould. You feel that the avidity of life +which is the substance of the work has really been seen 'à travers un +tempérament,' that here a strong personality is in revolt against all +tradition, a strong personality whose ponderous onslaught was bound to +strike terror into the cautious and the short-sighted. But the strength +and the art are not yet emancipated. Verhaeren is already a passionate +onlooker, but he is still only an onlooker, one who stands without and +not within the vortex, who watches everything with inspired sympathy, +but who has not yet experienced it. This land of Flanders has not yet +become a part of the poet's sensibility; the new point of view and the +new form for it are not yet achieved; there is yet wanting that final +smelting of the artistic excitement which is bound to burst all bonds +and restrictions, to flame along in its own free feeling in an +enraptured intoxication. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] 'Les Vieux Maîtres' (_Les Flamandes_). + +[2] 'Les Vieux Maîtres' (_Les Flamandes_). + +[3] 'Truandailles' (_Ibid._). + + + + +THE MONKS + + Moines venus vers nous des horizons gothiques, + Mais dont l'âme, mais dont l'esprit meurt de demain.... + Mes vers vous bâtiront de mystiques autels. + É.V., 'Aux Moines.' + + +Rubens, that lavish reveller, is the genius of the Flemish zest in +living; but zest in living is only the temperament and not the soul of +Flanders. Before him there were the earnest masters of the cloisters, +the primitives, the van Eycks, Memling, Gerhard David, Roger van der +Weyden; and after them came Rembrandt, the meditative visionary, the +restless seeker after new values. Belgium is something else beside the +merry land of kermesses; the healthy, sensual people are not the soul of +Flanders. Glaring lights cast strong shadows. All vitality that is +strongly conscious of itself produces its counterpart, seclusion and +asceticism; it is just the healthiest, the elemental races--the Russians +of to-day for instance--who among their strong have the weak, among +their gluttons of life those who avert their faces from it, among those +who assent some who deny. By the side of the ambitious, teeming Belgium +we have spoken of, there is a sequestered Belgium which is falling into +ruins. Art exclusively in Rubens's sense could take no account of all +those solitary cities, Bruges, Ypres, Dixmude, through whose noiseless +streets the monks hasten like flocks of ravens in long processions, in +whose canals the dumb white shadows of gliding nuns are mirrored. There, +mid life's raging river, are broad islands of dream where men find +refuge from realities. Even in the great Belgian cities there are such +sequestered haunts of silence, the _béguinages,_ those little towns in +the town, whither ageing men and women have retired, renouncing the +world for the peace of the cloister. Quite as much as the passion of +life, the Roman Catholic faith and monkish renunciation are nowhere so +deeply and firmly rooted as in this Belgium, where sensual pleasure is +so noisy in its excess. Here again an extreme of contrasts is revealed: +frowning in the face of the materialistic view of life stands the +spiritual view. While the masses in the exuberance of their health and +strength proclaim life aloud and pounce on its eternal pleasures, aside +and cut off from them stand another, far lesser company to whom life is +only a waiting for death, whose silence is as persistent as the +exultation of the others. Everywhere here austere faith has its black +roots in the vigorous, fruitful soil. For religious feeling always +remains alive among a people that has once, although centuries may have +passed since, fought with every fibre of its being for its faith. This +is a subterranean Belgium that works in secret and that easily escapes +the cursory glance, for it lives in shadows and silence. From this +silence, however, from this averted earnestness, Belgian art has derived +that mystical nourishment which has lent its baffling strength to the +works of Maeterlinck, the pictures of Fernand Khnopff and Georges Minne. +Verhaeren, too, did not turn aside from this sombre region. He, as the +painter of Belgian life, saw these shadows of a vanishing past, and, in +1886, added to his first book _Les Flamandes_ a second, _Les Moines_. It +almost seems as though he had first of all been obliged to exhaust both +the historical styles of his native land before he could reach his own, +the modern style. For this book is essentially a throw-back, a +confession of faith in Gothic art. + +Monks are for Verhaeren heroic symbols of I mighty periods in the past. +In his boyhood he I was familiar with their grave aspect. Near the +cheerful house where his youth was passed, there was at Bornhem a +Bernhardine monastery, whither the boy had often accompanied his father +to confession, and in whose cold corridors he had often waited in +astonishment and with a child's timidity, listening to the majestic +chant of the liturgy married to the organ's earnest notes. And here, one +day of days, he received, with a thrill of pious terror, his first +communion. Since that day the monks had been to him, as he trod the +beaten track of custom, beings in a strange world apart, the incarnation +of the beautiful and the supersensual, the unearthly on his child's +earth. And when, in the course of years, he sought to create in verse a +vision of Flanders in all her luminous and burning colours, he could not +forgo this mysterious chiaroscuro, this earnest tone. For three weeks he +withdrew to the hospitable monastery of Forges, near Chimay, taking part +in all the ceremonies and rites of the monks, who, in the hope of +winning a priest, afforded him full insight into their life. But +Verhaeren's attitude towards Roman Catholicism was by this time anything +but religious, it was rather an æsthetic and poetic admiration for the +noble romanticism of the ceremonial, a moral piety for the things of the +past. He remained three weeks. Then he fled, oppressed by the nightmare +of the ponderous walls, and, as a souvenir for himself, chiselled the +image of the monastery in verse. + +This book too, no doubt, had no other aim than to be pictorial, +descriptive. In rounded sonnets, as though etched by Rembrandt's needle, +he fixed the chiaroscuro of the cloister's corridors, the hours of +prayer, the earnest meetings of the monks, the silence in the intervals +of the liturgy. The evenings over the landscape were described, in a +ritual language, with the images of faith: the sun as it sets in crimson +flaming like the wine in the chalice; steeples like luminous crosses in +a silent sky; the rustling corn bowing when the bell rings to evensong. +The poetry of devotion and repose was here revived: the harmony of the +organ; the beauty of corridors garlanded with ivy; the touching idyll of +the lonely cemetery; the peaceful dying of the prior; the visiting of +the sick, and the I comfort it brings. Nothing was allowed in the deep +light of the colours, in the grave repose of the theme, save what could +be fitted into the strictly religious frame of the picture. + +But here the pictorial method proved to be I insufficient for the poetic +effect. The problem of religious feeling is too close to the heart to be +reached by outward, even by plastic manifestations. A thing which is so +eminently hostile to the sensuous, nay, which is the very symbol of I +all that is contrary to sensuousness, cannot be reached by a picturesque +appeal to the senses; the description of an intellectual problem must +cease to be descriptive and become psychology. And so, thus early in his +career, Verhaeren is forced away from the picturesque. First, however, +he attempts the plastic method: he gives us sombre statues of monks; but +even as statues they are only types of an inner life, symbols of the +ways to God. Verhaeren develops in his monks the difference of their +characters, which are still effective even under the soutane; and by his +delicate characterisation he shows the I manifold possibilities of +religious feeling. The I feudal monk, a noble of ancient lineage, would +make a conquest of God, as once his ancestors conquered castle and +forest lands with spur and sword. The _moine flambeau_, he that is +burning with fervour, would possess Him with his passion like a woman. +The savage monk, he that has come from the heart of a forest, can only +comprehend Him in heathen wise, only fear Him as the wielder of thunder +and lightning, while the gentle monk, he that loves the Virgin with a +troubadour's timid tenderness, flees from the fear of Him. One monk +would fathom Him by the learning of books and by logic; another does not +understand Him, cannot lay hold on Him, and yet finds Him everywhere, in +all things, in all he experiences. Thus all the characters of life, the +harshest contrasts, are jostled together, quelled only by the monastery +rules. But they are only in juxtaposition, just as the painter loves all +his colours and things equally, just as he places things in +juxtaposition, without estimating them according to their value. So far +there is nothing that binds them together inwardly, there is no conflict +of forces, no great idea. Neither are the verses as yet free; they too +have the effect of being bound by the strict discipline of the monks. +'Il s'environne d'une sorte de froide lumière parnassienne qui en fait +une oeuvre plus anonyme, malgré la marque du poète poinçonnée à +maintes places sur le métal poli,'[1] says Albert Mockel, the most +subtle of æsthetic critics, of the book. Verhaeren must himself have +felt this insufficiency, for, conscious of not having solved his +problems in terms of poetry, he has remoulded both aspects of the +country, renewed both books in another form after many years: _Les +Moines_ in the tragedy _Le Cloître, Les Flamandes_ in the great +pentalogy _Toute la Flandre._ + +_Les Moines_ was the last of Verhaeren's descriptive books, the last in +which he stood on the outer side of things contemplating them +dispassionately. But already here there is too much temperament in him +to allow him to look at things as altogether unconnected and +undisciplined; the joy of magnifying and intensifying by feeling already +stirs in him. At the end of the book he no longer sees the monks as +isolated individuals, but gathers them all together in a great synthesis +in his finale. Behind them the poet sees order, a secret law, a great +force of life. They, these hermits who have renounced, who are scattered +over the world in a thousand monasteries, are to the poet the last +remnants of a great departed beauty, and they are so much the more +grandiose as they have lost all feeling for our own time. They are the +last ruins of moribund Christianity in a new world, projecting, in +tragic loneliness, into our own days. 'Seuls vous survivez grands au +monde chrétien mort!'[2] he hails them in admiration, for they have +built the great House of God, and for many generations sacrificed their +blood for the Host eternally white. In admiration he hails them. Not in +faith and love, but in admiration for their fearless energy, and above +all because they go on fighting undaunted for something that is dead and +lost; because their beauty serves none other than itself; because they +project into our own time like the ancient belfries of the land, which +no longer call to prayer. In a land where everything else serves a +purpose, pleasure and gold, they stand lonely; and they die without a +cry and without a moan, fighting against an invisible enemy, they, the +last defenders of beauty. For at that time, at that early stage of his +career, beauty for Verhaeren was still identical with the past, because +he had not yet discovered beauty for himself in the new things; in the +monks he celebrates the last romanticists, because he had not yet found +poetry in the things of reality, not yet found the new romance, the +heroism of the working-day. He loves the monks as great dreamers, as the +_chercheurs de chimères sublimes_, but he cannot help them, cannot +defend what they possess, for behind them already stand their heirs. +These heirs are the poets--a curious echo of David Strauss's idea about +religion--who will have to be, what religion with its faithful was to +the past, the guardians and eternal promoters of beauty. They it will +be--here rings strangely the deepest intention of Verhaeren's later +work--who will wave their new faith over the world like a banner, they, +'les poètes venus trop tard pour être prêtres,'[3] who shall be the +priests of a new fervour. All religions, all dogmas, are brittle and +transitory, Christ dies as Pan dies; and even this poetic faith, the +last and highest conquest of the mind, must in its time pass away. + + Car il ne reste rien que l'art sur cette terre + Pour tenter un cerveau puissant et solitaire + Et le griser de rouge et tonique liqueur. + +In this great hymn to the future Verhaeren first turns away from the +past and seeks the path to the future. For the poetic idea is here +understood with new and greater feelings than in the beginning of his +career. Poetry is for Verhaeren a confession not only as applied to an +individual in Goethe's phrase, but in a religious sense as well: as the +highest moral confession. + +Much as these two books are marked by the effort to describe Flanders as +it actually is, stronger than this effort is the yearning at the heart +of them to escape from the present to the past. Every temperament +exceeds reality. Flanders was here described in the sense of an ideal; +but the ideal in both cases was projected on the past. Beauty young +Verhaeren had sought in the monks, the symbols of the past; strength and +the fire of life he had sought in the old Flemish masters. He still +needed the costume of the past to discover the heroic and the beautiful +in the present, just like many of our poets, who, when they would paint +strong men, must perforce place their dramas in the Florentine +renaissance, and who, if they would fashion beauty, deck their +characters with Greek costumes. To find strength and beauty, or in one +word poetry, in the real things that surround us, is here still denied +to Verhaeren; and therefore he has disowned his second book as well as +his first. In the distance between the old and the new works the long +road may be seen, and seen with pride, which leads from the traditional +poet to the truly contemporary poet. + +Though not yet divided with a master hand, though not yet in the light +of reality, the inner contrast of the country, the conflict between body +and soul, between the joy of life and the longing for death, between +pleasure and renunciation, the alternative between 'yes' and 'no,' was +yet already contained in the contrast of these two books. And in a +really emotional poet this contrast could not remain one that was purely +external; it was bound to condense to an inner problem, to a personal +decision between past and present. Two conceptions of the world, both +inherited and in the blood, have here attained consciousness in one man; +and though in life they may act independently in juxtaposition, in the +individual the conflict must be fought out, the victory of the one or +the other must be decided by force, or else by something higher, by an +internal reconciliation. This conflict for a conception of the world +pierces through the constant contrast between the acceptance and the +denial of life in the poet, a conflict that for ten long years +undermined his artistic and human experiences with terrific crises, and +brought him to the verge of annihilation. The hostility which divides +his country into two camps seems to have taken refuge in his soul to +fight it out in a desperate and mortal duel: past and future seem to be +fighting for a new synthesis. But only from such crises, from such +pitiless struggles with the forces of one's own soul, do the vast +conceptions of the universe and their new creative reconciliation grow. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Albert Mockel, _Émile Verhaeren_. + +[2] 'Aux Moines.' + +[3] 'Aux Moines.' + + + + +THE BREAK-DOWN + + Nous sommes tous des Christs qui embrassons nos croix. + É. V.,'La Joie,' + +Every feeling, every sensation is, in the last instance, the +transformation of pain. Everything that in vibration or by contact +touches the epithelium affects it as pain. As pain, which then, by the +secret chemistry of the nerves, transmitted from centre to centre, is +transformed into impressions, colours, sounds, and conceptions. The +poet, whose last secret really is that he is more sensitive than others, +that he purifies these pains of contact into feeling with a still more +delicate filter, must have finer nerves than anybody else. Where others +only receive a vague impression, he must have a clear perception, to +which his feeling must respond, and the value of which he must be able +to estimate. In Verhaeren's very first books a particular kind of +reaction to every incitement was perceptible. His feeling really +responds only to strong, intensive, sharp irritation; its delicacy was +not abnormal, only the energy of the reaction was remarkable. His first +artistic incitement; however, that of Flemish landscapes, was only one +of the retina, glaring colours, pictorial charm; only in _Les Moines_ +had for the first time more delicate psychic shades been crystallised. +In the meantime a transformation had taken place in his exterior life. +Verhaeren had turned aside from the contemplation of Nature to +concentrate his strength on the cultivation of his mind. He had +travelled extensively, had been in Paris and London, in Spain and +Germany; with impetuous haste he had assimilated all great ideas, all +new phases, all the manifold theories of existence. Without a pause, +incessantly, experiences assail him and tire him out. A thousand +impressions accost him, each demanding an answer; great, sombre cities +discharge their electric fire upon him, and fill his nerves with leaping +flame. The sky above him is obscured by the clouds of cities; in London +he wanders about as though wildered in a forest. This grey, misty city, +that seems as though it were built of steel, casts its whole melancholy +over the soul of him who lives there in loneliness, ignorant of the +language, and who is so much the more lonely, as all these +manifestations of the new life in great cities are still unintelligible +to him. He is still unable to capture the poetry that is in them, and so +they leap at him and penetrate him with a confused, unintelligible pain. +And in this novel atmosphere the intense refinement of his nerves +proceeds at such a pace that already the slightest contact with the +outer world produces a quivering reaction. Every noise, every colour, +every thought presses in upon him as though with sharp needles; his +healthy sensibility becomes hypertrophied; that fineness of hearing, of +which one is conscious, say in sea-sickness, which perceives every +noise, even the slightest sound, as though it were the blow of a hammer, +undermines his whole organism; every rapidly-passing smell corrodes him +like an acid; every ray of light pricks him like a red-hot needle. The +process is aggravated by a purely physical illness, which corresponds to +his psychic ailment. Just at that time Verhaeren was attacked by a +nervous affection of the stomach, one of those repercussions of the +psychic on the physical system in which it is hard to say whether the +ailing stomach causes the neurasthenic condition, or the weakness of the +nerves the stagnation of the digestive functions. Both ailments are +inwardly co-ordinated, both are a rejection of the outer impression, an +impotent refusal of the chemical conversion. Just as the stomach feels +all food as pain, as a foreign body, so the ear repels every sound as an +intrusion, so the eye rejects every impression as pain. This nervous +rejection of the outer world was already then, in Verhaeren's life, +pathological. The bell on the door had to be removed, because it shocked +his nerves; those who lived in the house had to wear felt slippers +instead of shoes; the windows were closed to the noise of the street. +These years in Verhaeren's life are the lowest depth, the crisis of his +vitality. It is in such periods of depression that invalids shut +themselves off from the world, from their fellow-men, from the light of +day, from the din of existence, from books, from all contact with the +outer world, because they instinctively feel that everything can be a +renewal of their pain, and nothing an enrichment of their life. They +seek to soften the world, to tone its colours down; they bury themselves +in the monotony of solitude. This 'soudaine lassitude'[1] then impinges +on to the moral nature; the will, losing the sense of life, is +paralysed; all standards of value collapse; ideals founder in the most +frightful Nihilism. The earth becomes a chaos, the sky an empty space; +everything is reduced to nothingness, to an absolute negation. Such +crises in the life of a poet are almost always sterile. And it is +therefore of incalculable value that here a poet should have observed +himself and given us a clear picture of himself in this state, that, +without fear of the ugliness, the confusion of his ego, he should have +described, in terms of art, the history of a psychic crisis. In +Verhaeren's trilogy, _Les Soirs, Les Débâcles, Les Flambeaux Noirs_, we +have a document that must be priceless to pathologists as to +psychologists. For here a deep-seated will to extract the last +consequence from every phase of life has reproduced the stadium of a +mental illness right to the verge of madness; here a poet has with the +persistence of a physician pursued the symptoms of his suffering +through every stage of lacerating pain, and immortalised in poems the +process of the inflammation of his nerves. + +The landscape of this book is no longer that of his native province; +indeed, it can hardly be called one of earth. It is a grandiose +landscape of dreams, horizons as though on some other planet, as though +in one of those worlds which have cooled into moons, where the warmth of +the earth has died out and an icy calm chills the vast far-seen spaces +deserted of man. Already in the book of the monks, Rubens's merry +landscape had been clouded over; and in the next, _Au Bord de la Route_, +the grey hand of a cloud had eclipsed the sun. But here all the colours +of life are burnt out, not a star shines down from this steel-grey +metallic sky; only a cruel, freezing moon glides across it from time to +time like a sardonic smile. These are books of pallid nights, with the +immense wings of clouds closing the sky, over a narrowed world, in which +the hours cling to things like heavy and clammy chains. They are works +filled with a glacial cold. 'Il gèle ...'[2] one poem begins, and this +shuddering tone pierces like the howling of dogs ever and ever again +over an illimitable plain. The sun is dead, dead are the flowers, the +trees; the very marshes are frozen in these white midnights: + + Et la crainte saisit d'un immortel hiver + Et d'un grand Dieu soudain, glacial et splendide.[3] + +In his fever the poet is for ever dreaming of this cold, as though in a +secret yearning for its cooling breath. No one speaks to him, only the +winds howl senselessly through the streets like dogs round a house. +Often dreams come, but they are _fleurs du mal_; they dart out of the +ice burning, yellow, poisonous. More and more monotonous grow the days, +more and more fearful; they fall down like drops, heavy and black. + + Mes jours toujours plus lourds s'en vont roulant leur cours![4] + +In thought and sound these verses express ail the frightful horror of +this desolation. Impotently the ticking of the clock hammers this +endless void, and measures a barren time. Darker, and darker grows the +world, more and more oppressive; the concave mirror of solitude distorts +the poet's dreams into frightful grimaces, and spirits whisper evil +thoughts in his restless heart. + +And like a fog, like a heavy, stifling cloud, fatigue sinks down on his +soul. First pleasure in things had died, and then the very will to +pleasure. The soul craves nothing now. The nerves have withdrawn their +antennæ from the outer world; they are afraid of every impression; they +are spent. Whatever chances to drift against them no longer becomes +colour, sound, impression; the senses are too feeble for the chemical +conversion of impressions: and so everything remains at the stage of +pain, a dull, gnawing pain. Feeling, which the nerves are now powerless +to feed, starves; desire is sunk in sleep. Autumn has come; all the +flowers have withered; and winter comes apace. + + Il fait novembre en mon âme. + Et c'est le vent du nord qui clame + Comme une bête dans mon âme.[5] + +Slowly, but irresistible as a swelling tide, emerges an evil thought: +the idea of the senselessness of life, the thought of death. As the last +of yearnings soars up the prayer: + + Mourir! comme des fleurs trop énormes, mourir![6] + +For the poet's whole body is, as it were, sore from this contact with +the outer world, from these little gnawing pains. Not a single great +feeling can stand erect: everything is eaten away by this little, +gnawing, twitching pain. But now the man in his torture springs up, as a +beast, tormented by the stings of insects, tears its chains asunder and +rushes madly and blindly along. The patient would fain flee from his bed +of torture, but he cannot retrace his steps. No man can 'se recommencer +enfant, avec calcul.'[7] Travels, dreams, do nothing but deaden the +pain; and then the torment of the awakening sets in again with redoubled +strength. Only one way is open: the road which leads forward, the road +to annihilation. Out of a thousand petty pains, the will longs for one +single pain that shall end all: the body that is being burnt piecemeal +cries for the lightning. The sick man desires--as fever-patients will +tear their wounds open--to make this pain, which tortures without +destroying, so great and murderous that it will kill outright: to save +his pride, he would fain be himself the cause of his destruction. Pain, +he says to himself, shall not continue to be a series of pin-pricks; he +refuses to 'pourrir, immensément emmailloté d'ennui';[8] he asks to be +destroyed by a vast, fiery, savage pain; he demands a beautiful and +tragic death. _The will to experience becomes here the will to suffer +pain_ and even death. He will be glad to suffer any torture, but not +this one low little thing; he can no longer endure to feel himself so +contemptible, so wretched. + + N'entendre plus se taire, en sa maison d'ébène, + Qu'un silence total dont auraient peur les morts.[9] + +And with a flagellant's pleasure the patient nurses this fire of fever, +till it flames up in a bright blaze. The deepest secret of Verhaeren's +art was from the first his joy in intemperance, the strength of his +exaggeration. And so, too, he snatches up this pain, this neurasthenia +to a wonderful, fiery, and grandiose ecstasy. A cry, a pleasure breaks +out of this idea of liberation. For the first time the word 'joy' blazes +again in the cry: + + Le joie enfin me vient, de souffrir par moi-même, + Parce que je lé veux.[10] + +True, only a perverse joy, a sophism, the false triumph over life of the +suicide, who believes he has conquered fate when, truth to tell, it has +conquered him. But this self-deception is already sublime. + +By this sudden interference of the will the physical torture of the +nerves becomes a psychic event; the illness of the body encroaches upon +the intellect; the neurasthenia becomes a 'déformation morale'; the +suffering schism of the poet's ego is of itself subdivided, so to speak, +into two elements, one that excites pain and one that suffers pain. The +psychic would fain tear itself free from the physical, the soul would +fain withdraw from the tortured body: + + Pour s'en aller vers les lointains et se défaire + De soi et des autres, un jour, + En un voyage ardent et mol comme l'amour + Et légendaire ainsi qu'un départ de galère![11] + +But the two are relentlessly bound up with each other, no flight is +possible, however much disgust drives the poet to rescue at least a part +of himself by snatching it into a purer, calmer, and higher state. +Never, I believe, has the aversion of a sick man to himself, the will to +health of a living man, been more cruel and more grandiose than in this +book of a poet's diabolical revolt against himself. His suffering soul +is torn into two parts. In a fearful personification the hangman and the +condemned criminal wrestle for the mastery. 'Se cravacher dans sa +pensée et dans son sang!'[12] and finally, in a paroxysm of fury, 'me +cracher moi-même,'[13] these are the horribly shrilling cries of +self-hatred and self-disgust. With all the strings of her whipped +strength the soul tears to free herself from the rotting and tormented +body, and her deepest torture is that this separation is impossible. In +this distraction flickers already the first flame of madness. + +Never--if we except Dostoieffsky--has a poet's scalpel probed the wound +of his ego so cruelly and so deeply, never has it gone so dangerously +near to the nerve of life. And never perhaps, except in Nietzsche's +_Ecce Homo!_ has a poet stepped so close to the edge of the precipice +that juts above the abyss of existence, with so clear a consciousness of +its vicinity, to feast on the feeling of dizziness and on the danger of +death. The fire in Verhaeren's nerves has slowly inflamed his brain. But +the other being, the poet in him, had remained watchful, observing the +eye of madness slowly, inevitably, and as though magnetically attracted, +coming nearer and nearer. 'L'absurdité grandit en moi comme une fleur +fatale.'[14] In gentle fear, but at the same time with a secret +voluptuous pleasure, he felt the dreaded thing approaching. For long +already he had been conscious that this rending of himself had hunted +his thinking from the circle of clarity. And in one grandiose poem, in +which he sees the corpse of his reason floating down the grey Thames, +the sick man describes that tragic foundering: + + Elle est morte de trop savoir, + De trop vouloir sculpter la cause, + --------------------------------- + Elle est morte, atrocement, + D'un savant empoisonnement, + Elle est morte aussi d'un délire + Vers un absurde et rouge empire.[15] + +But no fear takes him at this thought. Verhaeren is a poet who loves +paroxysm. And just as in his physical illness he had called out in the +deepest joy for the intoxication of illness, for its exasperation, for +death, so now his psychic illness demands its intoxication, the +dissolution of all order, its most glorious foundering: madness. Here, +too, the pleasure in the quest of pain is intensified to the highest +superlative, to a voluptuous joy in self-destruction. And as sick men +amid their torments scream of a sudden for death, this tortured man +screams in grim yearning for madness: + + Aurai-je enfin l'atroce joie + De voir, nerfs par nerfs, comme une proie, + La démence attaquer mon cerveau?[16] + +He has measured all the deeps of the spirit, but all the words of +religion and science, all the elixirs of life, have been powerless to +save him from this torment. He knows all sensations, and there was no +greatness in any of them; all have goaded him, none have exalted him or +raised him above himself. And now his heart yearns ardently for this +last sensation of all. He is tired of waiting for it, he will go out to +meet it: 'Je veux marcher vers la folie et ses soleils.'[17] He hails +madness as though it were a saint, as though it were his saviour; he +forces himself to 'croire à la démence ainsi qu'en une foi.'[18] It is a +magnificent picture reminding one of the legend of Hercules, who, +tortured by the fiery robe of Nessus, hurls himself on the pyre to be +consumed by one great flame instead of being wretchedly burnt to death +by a thousand slow and petty torments. + +Here the highest state of despair is reached; the black banner of death +and the red one of madness are furled together. With unprecedented logic +Verhaeren, despairing of an interpretation of life, has exalted +senselessness as the sense of the universe. But it is just in this +complete inversion that victory already lies. Johannes Schlaf, in his +masterly study, has with great eloquence demonstrated that it is just at +the moment when the sick man cries out like one being crucified, 'Je +suis l'immensément perdu,'[19] just when he feels he is being drawn into +the bosom of the infinite, that he is redeemed and delivered. Just this +idea, which here had whipped the little pain to the verge of madness, + + À chaque heure, violenter sa maladie; + L'aimer, et la maudire,[20] + +is already the deepest leitmotiv of Verhaeren's work, the key to unlock +the gates of it. For the idea is nothing else than the idea of his life, +to master all resistance by a boundless love, 'aimer le sort jusqu'en +ses rages';[21] never to shun a thing, but to take everything and +enhance it till it becomes creative, ecstatic pleasure; to welcome every +suffering with fresh readiness. Even this cry for madness, no doubt the +extreme document of human despair, is an immense yearning for clearness; +in this tortured disgust with illness cries a joy in life perhaps else +unknown in our days; and the whole conflict, which seems to be a flight +from life, is in the last instance an immense heroism for which there is +no name. Nietzsche's great saying is here fulfilled: 'For a dionysiac +task a hammer's hardness, _the pleasure in destruction itself_, is most +decidedly one of the preliminary conditions.'[22] And what at this +period of Verhaeren's work appears still to be negative is in the higher +sense a preparation for the positive, for the decisive consummation, of +the later books. + +For that reason this crisis and the shaping of it in verse remain an +imperishable monument of our contemporary literature, for it is at the +same time an eternal monument to the conquest of human suffering by the +power of art. Verhaeren's crisis--his exposition, for the sake of the +value of life, of his inward struggle--has gone deeper than that of any +other poet of our time. To this very day the sufferings of that time are +graven, as though by iron wedges, in the furrows of his lofty brow; the +recovery of his health and his subsequent robustness have been powerless +to efface them. This crisis was a fire without parallel, a flame of +passion. Not a single acquisition from the earlier days was rescued from +it. Verhaeren's whole former relation to the world has broken down: his +Catholic faith, his religion, his feeling for his native province, for +the world, for life itself, all is destroyed. And when he builds up his +work now, it must perforce be an entirely different one, with a +different artistic expression, with different feelings, different +knowledge, and different harmonies. This tempest has changed the +landscape of his soul, where once the peace of a modest existence had +prevailed, into a pathless desert. But this desert with its solitude has +space and liberty for the building up of a new, a richer, an infinitely +nobler world. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] 'L'Heure Mauvaise' (_Au Bord de la Route_). + +[2] 'La Barque' (_Au Bord de la Route_). + +[3] 'Le Gel' (_Les Soirs_). + +[4] 'L'Heure Mauvaise' (_Au Bord de la Route_). + +[5] 'Vers' (_Au Bord de la Route_). + +[6] 'Mourir' (_Les Soirs_). + +[7] 'S'amoindrir' (_Les Débâcles_). + +[8] 'Si Morne' (_Les Débâcles_) + +[9] 'Le Roc' (_Les Flambeaux Noirs_). + +[10] 'Insatiablement' (_Les Soirs_). + +[11] 'Là-bas' (_Au Bord de la Route_). + +[12] 'Vers le Cloître' (_Les Débâcles_). + +[13] 'Un Soir' (_Au Bord de la Route_). + +[14] 'Fleur Fatale' (_Les Débâcles_). + +[15] 'La Morte' (_Les Flambeaux Noirs_). + +[16] 'Le Roc' (_Ibid._). + +[17] 'Fleur Fatale' (_Les Débâcles_). + +[18] 'Le Roc' (_Les Flambeaux Noirs_). + +[19] 'Les Nombres' (_Ibid._). + +[20] 'Celui de la Fatigue' (_Les Apparus dans mes Chemins_). + +[21] 'La Joie' (_Les Visages de la Vie_). + +[22] _Ecce Homo!_ + + + + +FLIGHT INTO THE WORLD + + On boit sa soif, on mange sa faim.--É.V., 'L'Amour.' + +In this crisis the negation was driven to the last possible limits. The +sick man had denied not only the outer world, but himself as well. +Nothing had remained but vexation, disgust, and torment. + + La vie en lui ne se prouvait + Que par l'horreur qu'il en avait.[1] + +He had arrived at the last possibility, at that possibility which means +destruction or transformation. The at first purely physical pain of the +supersensitive organs of the senses had become a moral depression; the +depression had become psychic suffering; and this again had gradually +turned in a grandiose progression not only to pain in the individual +thing but to suffering in the all: to _cosmic pain_. For Him, however, +who in His loneliness took the suffering of the whole world upon His +shoulders, who was strong enough to bear it for all the centuries, +humanity has invented the symbol of 'God.' He who is born of earth and +lives to die must perforce break down under so gigantic a burden. Into +the last corner of his ego revengeful life had here driven the man who +denied it, had driven him to the point where now he stood shivering +before the abyss in his own breast, face to face with death and madness. +The physical and poetic organism of Verhaeren was overheated to the most +dangerous and extreme degree. This fever-heat--that of a flagellant +--had brought his blood to the boiling-point; it was filling the chamber +of his breast with pictures of such overwhelming horror that the +explosion of self-destruction could only be prevented by opening the +valve. + +There were only two means of flight from this destruction: flight into +the past--or flight into a new world. Many, Verlaine for instance, had +in such catastrophes, wherein the whole structure of their lives tumbled +to the ground, fled into the cathedrals of Catholicism rather than stand +in solitude under the threatening sky. Verhaeren, however, though an +inspired faith is one of the most living sources of his poetical power, +was more afraid of the past than of the Unknown. _He freed himself from +the immense pressure upon him by fleeing into the world_. He who in his +pride had conceived the whole process of the world as a personal affair, +he who had tried to solve the eternal discord, the undying 'yes' and +'no' of life in his own lonely self, now rushes into the very midst of +things and involves himself in their process. He who previously had felt +everything only subjectively, only in isolation, now objectifies +himself; he who previously had shut himself off from reality, now lets +his veins pulse in harmony with the breathing organism of life. He +relinquishes his attitude of pride; he surrenders himself; lavishes +himself joyously on everything; exchanges the pride of being alone for +the immense pleasure of being everywhere. _He no longer looks at all +things in himself, but at himself in all things_. But the poet in him +frees himself, quite in Goethe's sense, by symbols. Verhaeren drives his +superabundance out of himself into the whole world, just as Christ in +the legend drove the devils out of the madman into the swine. The heat, +the fever of his feeling--which, concentrated in his too narrow chest, +were near bursting it--now animate with their fire the whole world +around him, which of old had been to him congealed with ice. All the +evil powers, which had slunk around him in the trappings of nightmares, +he now transforms to shapes of life. He hammers away at them and shapes +them anew; he is himself the smith of that noble poem of his, the smith +of whom he says: + + Dans son brasier, il a jeté + Les cris d'opiniâtreté, + La rage sourde et séculaire; + Dans son brasier d'or exalté, + Maître de soi, il a jeté + Révoltes, deuils, violences, colères, + Pour leur donner la trempe et la clarté + Du fer et de l'éclair.[2] + +He objectifies his personality in the work of art, hammering out of the +cold blocks, that weighed upon him with the weight of iron, monuments +and statues of pain. All the feelings which of old weighed down upon him +like dull fog, formless and prisoned in dream like nightmares, now +become clear statues, symbols in stone of his soul's experiences. The +poet has torn his fear, his burning, moaning, horrible fear, out of +himself, and poured it into his bell-ringer, who is consumed in his +blazing belfry. He has turned the monotony of his days to music in his +poem of the rain; his mad fight against the elements, which in the end +break his strength, he has shaped into the image of the ferryman +struggling against the current that shatters his oars one after the +other. His cruel probing of his own pain he has visualised in the idea +of his fishermen, who with their nets all in holes go on fishing up +nothing but suffering on suffering out of the sombre stream; his evil +and red lusts he has spiritualised in his _Aventurier_, in the +adventurer who returns home from a far land to celebrate his wedding +feast with his dead love. Here his feelings are shaped no longer in +moods, in the fluid material of dreams, but in the infinitely mobile +form of human beings. Here there is symbolism in the highest sense, in +Goethe's sense of liberation. For every feeling that has achieved +artistic shape is as it were conjured away out of the breast. And thus +the too heavy pressure slowly disappears from the poet's being, and the +morbid fever from his work. Now and now only does he recognise the +suicidal cowardice behind the visor of the pride that forced him to fly +from the world, now and now only does he understand that fatal egoism +which had taken refuge beyond the pale of the world: + + J'ai été lâche et je me suis enfui + Du monde, en mon orgueil futile,[3] + +This confession is the last liberating word of the crisis. + +Now his despair--a despair like that of Faust--is overcome. The mood of +Easter morning begins to sound the exulting cry, 'Earth has me +again!'[4] with the anthems of the resurrection. Verhaeren has described +this deliverance, this ascent from illness to health, from the most +despairing 'no' to the most exultant 'yes,' in many symbols, most +beautifully in that magnificent poem wherein St. George the +dragon-slayer bows down to him with his shining lance; and again in that +other poem in which the four gentle sisters approach him and announce +his deliverance: + + L'une est le bleu pardon, l'autre la bonté blanche, + La troisième l'amour pensif, la dernière le don + D'être, même pour les méchants, le sacrifice.[5] + +Goodness and love call to him now from where of old there were only +hatred and despair. And in their approach already he feels the hope of +recovery, the hope of a natural, artistic strength. + + Et quand elles auront, dans ma maison, + Mis de l'ordre à mes torts, plié tous mes remords + Et refermé, sur mes péchés, toute cloison, + En leur pays d'or immobile, où le bonheur + Descend, sur des rives de fleurs entr'accordées, + Elles dresseront les hautes idées, + En sainte-table, pour mon coeur.[6] + +This feeling of recovery grows more and more secure, more and more the +mist parts before the approaching sun of health. Now the poet knows that +he has been wandering in the dark galleries of mines, that he has been +hammering a labyrinth through the hard rock of hatred instead of walking +the same path as his fellow-men in the light. And at last, bright and +exultant, high above the shy voices of hope and prayer, the sudden +triumph of certainty rings out. For the first time Verhaeren finds the +form of the poem of the future--the dithyramb. Where of old, confused +and lonely, _le carillon noir_ of pain sounded, now all the strings of +the heart vibrate and sing. + + Sonnez toutes mes voix d'espoir! + Sonnez en moi; sonnez, sous les rameaux, + En des routes claires et du soleil![7] + +And now the path proceeds in light 'vers les claires métamorphoses.'[8] + +This flight into the world was the great liberation. Not only has the +body grown strong again and rejoices in the wandering and the way, but +the soul too has become cheerful, the will has grown new wings that are +stronger than the old, and the poet's art is filled with a fresh blood +red with life. The deliverance is perceptible even in Verhaeren's verse, +which with its delicate nerves reproduces all the phases of his soul. +For his poetry, which at first in the indifference of its picturesque +description preserved the cold form of the Alexandrine, and then, in the +grim monotony of the crisis, tried to represent the void waste of +feeling by a terrifying, gruesomely beautiful uniformity of rhythm, this +poem of a sudden, as though out of a dream, starts into life, awakens +like an animal from sleep, rears, prances, curvets; imitates all +movements, threatens, exults, falls into ecstasy: in other words, all of +a sudden, and independently of all influences and theories, he has won +his way to the _vers libre,_ free verse. Just as the poet no longer +shuts the I world up in himself, but bestows himself on the world, the +poem too no longer seeks to lock the world up obstinately in its +four-cornered prison, but surrenders itself to every feeling, every +rhythm, every melody; it adapts itself, distends; with its foaming +voluptuous joy it can fold in its embrace the illimitable length and +breadth of cities, can contract to pick up the loveliness of one fallen +blossom, can imitate the thundering voice of the street, the hammering +of machines, and the whispering of lovers in a garden of spring. _The +poem can now speak in all the languages of feeling, with all the voices +of men; for the tortured, moaning cry of an individual has become the +voice of the universe._ + +But together with this new delight the poet feels the debt which he has +withheld from his age. He beholds the lost years in which he lived only +for himself, for his own little feeling, instead of listening to the +voice of his time. With a remarkable concordance of genius Verhaeren's +work here expresses what Dehmel--in the same year perhaps--fashioned +with such grandeur in 'The Mountain Psalm,' the poem in which, looking +down from the heights of solitude to the cities in their pall of smoke, +he cries in ecstasy: + + Was weinst du, Sturm?--Hinab, Erinnerungen! + dort pulst im Dunst der Weltstadt zitternd Herz! + Es grollt ein Schrei von Millionen Zungen + nach Glück und Frieden: Wurm, was will dein Schmerz! + Nicht sickert einsam mehr von Brust zu Brüsten, + wie einst die Sehnsucht, als ein stiller Quell; + heut stöhnt ein _Volk_ nach Klarheit, wild und gell, + und du schwelgst noch in Wehmutslüsten? + + Siehst du den Qualm mit dicken Fäusten drohn + dort überm Wald der Schlote und der Essen? + Auf deine Reinheitsträume fällt der Hohn + der Arbeit! fühl's: sie ringt, von Schmutz zerfressen. + Du hast mit deiner Sehnsucht bloss gebuhlt, + in trüber Glut dich selber nur genossen; + schütte die Kraft aus, die dir zugeflossen, + und du wirst frei vom Druck der Schuld![9] + +Pour out the power that has flowed in upon thee! Surrender thyself! That +too is Verhaeren's ecstatic cry at this hour. Opposites touch. _Supreme +solitude is turned to supreme fellowship_. The poet feels that +self-surrender is more than self-preservation. All at once he sees +behind him the frightful danger of this self-seeking pain. + + Et tout à coup je m'apparais celui + Qui s'est, hors de soi-même, enfui + Vers le sauvage appel des forces unanimes.[10] + +And he who in days gone by had fled from this appeal into cold solitude, +now casts himself ecstatically into the arms of the world, with the I +deepest yearning + + De n'être plus qu'un tourbillon + Qui se disperse au vent mystérieux des choses.[11] + +He feels that in order to live to the full all the greatness and beauty +of this fiery world, he must multiply himself, be a thousandfold and ten +thousandfold what he is. 'Multiplie-toi!' Be manifold. Surrender +thyself! For the first time this cry bursts up like a flame. Be +manifold! + + Multiplie et livre-toi! Défais + Ton être en des millions d'êtres; + Et sens l'immensité filtrer et transparaître.[12] + +Only from this brotherhood with all things accrue the possibilities of +being a modern poet. Only by self-surrender to everything that is could +Verhaeren attain to so grandiose a conception of contemporary +manifestations, only thus could he become the poet of the democracy of +cities, of industrialism, of science, the poet of Europe, the poet of +our age. Only such a pantheistic feeling could create this intimate +relationship between the world of self and the world surrounding self, +the relationship which subsequently ends in an unparalleled identity: +only so despairing a 'no' could be transformed to so enraptured a 'yes,' +only one who had fled from the world could possess it with such passion. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] 'Un Soir' (_Au Bord de la Route_). + +[2] 'Le Forgeron' (_Les Villages Illusoires_). + +[3] 'Saint Georges' (_Les Apparus dans mes Chemins_). + +[4] Goethe's _Faust_, 1. 784. + +[5] 'Les Saintes' (_Les Apparus dans mes Chemins_). + +[6] 'Les Saintes' (_Les Apparus dans mes Chemins_). + +[7] 'Saint Georges' (_Ibid_). + +[8] 'Le Forgeron' (_Les Villages Illusoires_). + +[9] 'Why weepest thou, O storm?--Down, memories! Yonder in the smoke +pulses the great city's trembling heart! A million grumbling tongues are +crying for peace and happiness: worm, what would thy pain! Yearning no +longer trickles lonely from breast to breasts, a quiet source and no +more: to-day a _nation_ groans, and with wild, shrill voices demands +clearness--and thou still revellest in the joys of melancholy? + +'Seest thou the reek and smoke threatening yonder over the forest of +flues and chimneys? Upon thy dreams of purity falls the scorn of labour! +Feel it: labour is struggling, eaten up with dirt! Thou hast but +wantoned with thy yearning, thou hast but enjoyed thyself in turbid +heat; pour out the power that has flowed in upon thee, and thou shalt be +free from the burden of guilt!'--'Bergpsalm' (_Aber die Liebe_). + +[10] 'La Foule' (_Les Visages de la Vie_). + +[11] 'Celui du Savoir' (_Les Apparus dans mes Chemins_). + +[12] 'La Forêt' (_Les Visages de la Vie_). + + + + + +PART II + +CONSTRUCTIVE FORCES + + +LES CAMPAGNES HALLUCINÉES--LES VILLAGES ILLUSOIRES +--LES VILLES TENTACULAIRES--LES DRAMES + +1893-1900 + + + + + +CONTEMPORARY FEELING + + J'étais le carrefour où tout se rencontrait.--É.V., 'Le Mont.' + + +Verhaeren's deliverance from the stifling clasp of his crisis was a +flight to realities. He saved himself by no longer fixing his gaze +rigidly on himself and deeply probing every feeling of joy and torment, +but by turning to the world of phenomena and flinging himself on its +problems. He has no longer to stand in solitude facing the world; his +desire is to multiply himself, to realise himself in everything that is +alive, in everything that expresses a will, an idea, a form, anything at +all animated. His poetic aim now is, not so much to analyse himself to +himself, as to analyse himself in the whole world. + +To realities, and particularly to the realities of our day, lyric poets +had previously felt themselves alien. It had long been a commonplace to +speak of the danger to art of industrialism, of democracy, of this age +of machinery which makes pur life uniform, kills individuality, and +drowns romance in actualities. All these poets have looked upon the new +creations, machines, railways, monster cities, the telegraph, the +telephone, all the triumphs of engineering, as a drag on the soaring of +poetry. Ruskin preached that workshops should be demolished and chimneys +razed to the ground; Tolstoy pointed to primitive man, who produces all +his requirements from his own resources independently of any community, +and saw in him the moral and æsthetic ideal of the future. In poetry, +the past had gradually come to be identified with the poetical. People +were enamoured of the glory that was Greece, of mail-coaches and narrow, +crooked streets; they were filled with enthusiasm for all foreign +cultures, and decried that of our own time as a phase of degeneration. +Democracy, levelling all ranks and confining even the poet to the +middle-class profession of author, seemed, as a social order, to be the +correlation of machinery which, by the constructive skill of workshops, +renders all manual dexterity unnecessary. All the poets, who were glad +to avail themselves of the practical advantages provided by technical +science, who had no objection to covering immense distances in the +minimum time, who accepted the comfort of the modern house, the luxury +of modern conditions of life, increased pecuniary rewards and social +independence, refused obstinately to discover in these advantages a +single poetic motive, a single object of inspiration, the least stimulus +or ecstasy. Poetry had by degrees come to be something which was the +very opposite of what-, ever is useful; all evolution seemed to these +poets to be, from the point of view of culture, retrogression. + +Now it is Verhaeren's great exploit that he effected a transmutation +poetic values. He discovered the sublime in the far-spread serried ranks +of democracy; beauty he found not only where it adapts itself to +traditional ideas, but also where, still hidden by the cotyledon of the +new, it is just beginning to unfold. By rejecting no phenomenon, in so +far as an inward sense and a necessity dwelt in it, he infinitely +extended the boundaries of the lyric art. He found a fruitful soil in +the very places where all other poets despaired of poetic seed. He and +he alone, who had for so long been eating his heart out in fierce +isolation, feels the strength and fulness of society, the poetical +element in the massed strength of great cities and in great inventions. +_His deepest longing, his most sublime exploit is the lyric discovery of +the new beauty in new things._ + +The only way to this feat lay for him through the conviction that beauty +does not express anything absolute, but something that changes with +circumstances and with men; that beauty, like everything that is subject +to evolution, is constantly changing. Yesterday's beauty is not to-day's +beauty. Beauty is no more opposed than anything else to that tendency to +spiritualisation which is the most characteristic symptom ind result of +all culture. Physiologists have proved that the physical strength of +modern man is inferior to that of his ancestors, but that his nervous +system is more developed, so that strength is more and more concentrated +in the intellect. The Hellenic hero was the wrestler, the expression of +a body harmoniously developed in every limb, the perfection of strength +and skill; the hero of our time is the thinker, the ideal of +intellectual strength and suppleness. And since our only way of +estimating the perfection of things is by the ideal of our personal +feeling, the form of beauty likewise has been transformed and become +intellectual. And even when we seek it in the body, as, for instance, in +the ideal woman's figure, we have grown accustomed to seeing perfection +not so much in robustness and plumpness as in a noble, slender play of +lines which mysteriously expresses the soul. Beauty is turning away more +and more from the outer surface, from the physical, to the interior +aspects, to the psychic. In proportion as motive forces hide themselves +and as harmony becomes less obvious, beauty intellectualises itself. It +is becoming for us not so much a beauty of appearance as a beauty of; +aim. If we are to admire the telegraph or the telephone, we shall not be +satisfied with considering the exterior forms, the network of wires, the +keys, the receivers; we shall be impressed rather by the ideal beauty, +by the idea of a vibrating spark leaping over countries and whole +continents. A machine is not wonderful on, account of its rattling, +rusty, iron framework, but by the idea, deep-seated in its body, which +is the principle of its magical activity. A modern idea of beauty must +be adapted not only to the idea of beauty of the past, but also to that +of the future. And the future of æsthetics is a kind of ideology, or, as +Renan expresses it, an identity with the sciences. We shall lose the +habit of understanding things only by our senses, of seeing their +harmony only on their exterior surface, and we shall have to learn how +to conceive their intellectual aims, their inner form, their psychic +organisation, as beauty. + +For these new things are only ugly when they are regarded with the eyes +of a past century, when our contemporaries, jealously guarding a +reverent over-estimation, valuing the rust and not the gold, despise +modern works of art, and pay a thousand times too dear for the +indifferent productions of a past age. Only in this state of feeling is +it possible to esteem mail-coaches poetical and locomotives ugly; only +thus is it possible for poets, who have not learned to see with +emancipated and independent eyes, to assume such a hostile attitude, or +at the best an indifferent attitude, to our realities. Let us remember +Nietzsche's beautiful words: 'My formula for grandeur in man is _amor +fati_: that a man should ask for nothing else, either in the past or in +the future, in all eternity. We must not only endure what is necessary, +still less conceal it--all idealism is lying in necessity's face--but +we must _love_ it.'[1] And in this sense some few in our days have loved +what is new, first as a necessity, and then as beauty. A generation ago +now, Carlyle was the first to preach the heroism of everyday life, and +exhorted the poets of his day not to describe the greatness they found +in mouldy chronicles, but to look for it where it was nearest to them, +in the realities around them. Constantin Meunier has found the idea of a +new sculpture in democracy, Whistler and Monet have discovered in the +smoky breath of this age of machinery a new tone of colour which is not +less beautiful than Italy's eternal azure and the halcyon sky of Greece. +It is only from the vast agglomerations, the immense dimensions of the +new world that Walt Whitman has derived the strength and power of his +voice. The whole difficulty which thus far has permitted only a few to +serve the new beauty in the new things lies in the fact that our age is +not yet a period of decided conviction, but only one of transition. The +victory of machinery is not yet complete; handiwork still subsists, +little towns still flourish, it is still possible to take refuge in an +idyll, to find the old beauty in some sequestered corner. Not till the +poet is shut off from all flight to inherited ideals will he be forced +to change himself into a new man. For the new things have not yet +organically developed their beauty. Every new thing on its first +appearance is blended with something repellent, brutal, and ugly; it is +only gradually that its inherent form shapes itself æsthetically. The +first steamers, the first locomotives, the first automobiles, were ugly. +But the slender, agile torpedo-boats of to-day, the bright-coloured, +noiselessly--gliding automobiles with their hidden mechanism, the great, +broad-chested Pacific Railway engines of to-day, are impressive by their +outward form alone. Our huge shops, such as those which Messel built in +Berlin, display a beauty in iron and glass which is hardly less than +that of the cathedrals and palaces of old time. Certain great things, +such as the Eiffel Tower, the Forth Bridge, modern men-of-war, furnaces +belching flame, the Paris boulevards, have a new beauty beyond anything +which past ages had to show. These new things compel a new enhancement +of value, on the one hand by the idea that moves them, on the other hand +by their democratic grandeur and their vast dimensions--equalled by none +but the very greatest works of antiquity. But whatever is beautiful +must, sooner or later, be conceived of as poetry. And thus, it is quite +sure, Verhaeren has only been one of the first to build bridges from the +old to the new time; others will come who will celebrate the new +beauties in the new things--gigantic cities, engines, industrialism, +democracy, this fiery striving for new standards of greatness--and they +will not only be compelled to find the new beauties, they will also +have to establish new laws for this new order, a different morality, a +different religion, a different synthesis for this new conditionality. +the poetic transmutation of the beautiful is only a first beginning of +the poetic transmutation of the feeling of life. + +But a poet never finds anything in things save his own temperament. If +he is melancholy, the world in his books is void of sense, all lights +are extinguished, laughter dies; if he is passionate, all feelings +seethe in a fiery froth as though in a cauldron, and foam up in angry +happenings. Whereas the real world is manifold, and contains the elixirs +of pleasure and pain, confidence and despair, love and hate, only as +elements so to speak, the world of great poets is the world of one +single feeling. And so Verhaeren too sees all things in their new beauty +with the feelings of his own life only, only with energy. In these the +fiery years of his prime it is not harmony that he seeks, but energy, +power. For him a thing is the more beautiful the more purpose, will, +power, energy it contains. And since the whole world of to-day is +over-heated with effort and energy; since our great towns are nothing +but centres of multiplied energy; since machinery expresses nothing save +force tanied and organised; since innumerable crowds are yoked in +harmonious action--to him the world is full of beauty. He loves the new +age because it does not isolate effort but condenses it, because it is +not scattered but concentrated for action. And of a sudden everything +he sees appears to be filled with soul. All that has will, all that has +an aim in view--man, machine, crowd, city, money; all that vibrates, +works, hammers, travels, exults; all that propagates itself and is +multiplied, all that strives to be creation; all that bears in itself +fire, impulse, electricity, feeling--all this rings again in his verse. +All that of old had acted upon him as being cold and dead and hostile is +now inspired with will and energy, and lives its minute; in this +multiple gear there is nothing that is merely dust or useless +ornamentation; everything is creation, everything is working its way +towards the future. The town, this piled-up Babylon of stones and men, +is of a sudden a living being, a vampire sucking the strength of the +land; the factories, that had seemed to him nothing but an unsightly +mass of masonry, now become the creators of a thousand things, which in +their turn create new things out of themselves. All at once Verhaeren is +the socialist poet, the poet of the age of machinery, of democracy, and +of the European race. And energy fills his poetry too: it is strength +let loose, enthusiasm, paroxysm, ecstasy, whatever you like to call it; +but always active, glowing, moving strength; never rest, always +activity. His poem is no longer declamation, no longer the marmoreal +monument of a mood, but a crying aloud, a fight, a convulsive starting, +a stooping down and a springing up again; it is a battle materialised. +For him all values have been transmuted. It is just what had repelled +him most--London, monster cities, railway stations, Exchanges, which now +lure him most of all as poetic problems. The more a thing seems to +resist beauty--the more he has first to discover its beauty by fighting +it and wrestling with it in torment--with so much the greater ecstasy +does he now extol it. The strength which had murderously raged against +itself now, in creative ecstasy, breaks into the world. To tear down +resistance, to snatch beauty from its most hidden corner, is now for him +a tenfold strength and joy of creation. _Verhaeren now creates the poem +of the great city in the dionysiac sense_; the hymn to our own time, to +Europe; creates ecstasy, renewed and renewed again, in life. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] _Ecce Homo!_ + + + + +TOWNS ('LES VILLES TENTACULAIRES') + + Le siècle et son horreur se condensent en elles + Mais leur âme contient la minute éternelle. + É.V., 'Les Villes.' + + +When a man just recovered from illness steps for the first time with +arms outspread, and as though climbing up from a dungeon, into the light +of day, he is filled with a bliss beyond measure by the open air +caressing him on all sides, by the orgies of the sunlight, the cataracts +of deafening din: with a cry of infinite exultation he takes into +himself the symphony of life. And from this first moment of his recovery +Verhaeren was seized by a limitless thirst for the intoxication of life, +as though with one single leap he would make good the lost years of his +loneliness, of his illness, and of his crisis. His eyes, his ears, his +nerves, all his senses, which had been a-hungered, now pounce on things +with a pleasure that is almost murderous, and snatch everything to +themselves in a frenzy of greed. At this time Verhaeren travelled from +country to country, as though he would take possession of all Europe. He +was in Germany, in Berlin, in Vienna, and in Prague; always a lonely +wanderer; quite alone; ignorant of the language, and listening only to +the voice of the town itself, to the strange, sombre murmuring, to the +surge of the European metropolises. In Bayreuth he paid his devotions at +the tomb of Wagner, whose music of ecstasy and passion he absorbed in +Munich; in Colmar he learned to understand his beloved painter Mathias +Grünewald; he saw and loved the tragic landscapes of northern Spain, +those gloomy, treeless mountains, whose threatening silhouettes +afterwards became the background of the fiery happenings in his drama of +_Philip II._; in Hamburg he was an excited spectator, day by day, of the +stupendous traffic, the coming and going of the ships, the unloading and +the loading of cargoes. Everywhere where life was intensive, expressive, +and animated with a new energy, he passionately loved it. It is +characteristic of his temperament that the harmonious beauty of peaceful +and empty, of sleeping and dreaming cities appealed to him less than +modern cities in their pall of soot and smoke. Almost intentionally his +affection turns from the traditional ideal to one yet unknown. Florence, +for many centuries the symbol of all poets, disappointed him: the +Italian air was too mild, these contours were too meagre, too dreamy the +streets. But London, this piled-up conglomeration of dwellings and +workshops; this town that might have been cast in bronze; this teeming +labyrinth of dingy streets; this ever-beating, restless heart of the +world's trade with its smoke of toil threatening to eclipse the sun; +this was to him a revelation. Just the industrial towns, which had thus +far tempted no poet; those towns which roll up the vault of their leaden +sky with their own fog and smoke, which confine their inhabitants in +leagues and leagues of congested masonry, these attract him. He, who +revels in colour, grew fond of Paris, to which, since then, he has +returned every year for the winter months. Just what is restless and +busy, confused and breathless, hunted, eager, feverish, hot with an +ardour as of rut, all this Babylonian medley lures him. He loves this +pell-mell multiplicity and its strange music. Often he would travel for +hours on the top of heavy omnibuses, to have a bird's-eye view of the +bustling throng, and here he would close his eyes the better to feel the +dull rumour, this surging sound which, in its ceaselessness, is not +unlike the rustling of a forest, beating against his body. No longer as +in his earlier books does he follow the existence of simple callings; he +loves the ascension of handiwork to mechanical labour, in which the aim +is invisible, and only the grandiose organisation is revealed. And +gradually this interest became the motive interest of his life. +Socialism, which in those years was becoming strong and active, fell +like a red drop into the morbid paleness of his poetic work. +Vandervelde, the leader of the Labour Party, became his friend. And +when, at this stage, the party founded the Maison du Peuple at Brussels, +he readily helped, gave lectures at the Université Libre, took part in +all the projects, and afterwards, wards, in the most beautiful vision +of his poetical work, lifted them far above the political and actual +into the great events of all humanity. His life, now inwardly +established, henceforth beats with a strong and regular rhythm. He had +in the meantime, by his marriage, attained a personal appeasement, a +counterpoise for his unbridled restlessness. Now his wild ecstasies have +their fixed point, from which they can survey the fiery vortex of the +new phenomena. The morbid pictures, the feverish hallucinations, now +become clear visions; not by flashes of lightning, but in a steady, +beaming light are the horizons of our time now illuminated for him. + +Now that he steps boldly into life, his first problem is to come to an +understanding with the world around him, with his fellow-men, with the +city itself. But it is not the city he lives in which interests him in a +provincial sense, but the ideal, modern city, the monster city in +general, this strange and uncanny thing that like a vampire has snatched +to herself all the strength of the soil and of men to form a new +residuum of power. She crowds together the contrasts of life; grades, in +unexpected layers, immense riches over the most wretched poverty; +strengthens opposing forces, and goads them to hostility, goads them to +that desperate battle in which Verhaeren loves to see all things +involved. The grandeur of this new organism is beyond the æsthetics of +the past; and new and strange before Nature stand men also, with +another rhythm, a hotter breath, quicker movements, wilder desires than +were known to any association of men, to any calling or caste, of a +previous time. It is a new outlook which not only sweeps the distance, +but has also to reckon with height, with the piled tiers of houses, with +new velocities and new conditions of space. A new blood, money, feeds +these cities, a new energy fires them; they are driven to procreate a +new faith, a new God, and a new art. Their dimensions, terrific, and of +a beauty hitherto unknown, defy measurement; the order that rules is +hidden in the earth behind a pathless wilderness. + + Quel océan, ses coeurs? ... + Quels noeuds de volonté serrés en son mystère![1] + +cries out the poet in wonderment as he strides through the city and is +overpowered by her grandeur: + + Toujours en son triomphe ou ses défaites, + Elle apparaît géante, et son cri sonne et son nom luit.[2] + +He feels that an enormous energy proceeds from her; he is conscious that +her atmosphere rests with a new pressure on his body, that his blood +quickens to keep pace with her rhythm. Merely to be near her starts the +thrill of a new delight. + + En ces villes ... + * * * * * + Je sens grandir et s'exalter en moi, + Et fermenter, soudain, mon coeur multiplié.[3] + +Involuntarily he feels himself becoming dependent on her, feels this +grandiose coupling of energy producing a similar concentration of all +his forces in himself too, feels his fever becoming infectious like her +own, and feels--with an intensity unknown to any other poet of our +days--the identity of his personality with the soul of the city. He +knows she is dangerous, knows she will fill him with all restlessness, +overheat him and excite him, confuse him with her hostile contrasts. + + Voici la ville en or des rouges alchimies, + Où te fondre le coeur en un creuset nouveau + Et t'affoler d'un orage d'antinomies + Si fort qu'il foudroiera tes nerfs jusqu'au cerveau.[4] + +But he knows that she will impregnate him as well, give him power from +her strength. There will never be a great man again who will pass her +by, who will not be thrilled by her sensation, who will not live with +her, and by her grow. Henceforth all new and strong men will stand in +reciprocal action with her. + +This great recognition of a fact is, as we have seen, not spontaneous, +but painfully acquired. For in the sense of the old beauty the aspect of +a modern city is frightful. She is a sleepless, an ever wakeful woman; +she does not, like Nature, sometimes rest; she is never silent. +Restlessly she sucks men into her whirlpool; ceaselessly she pricks +their nerves; day and night her life pulses. By day she is as grey as +lead; a sultry shuttle of passions; a dark mine in which men, buried in +the mines of her streets, are forced to unresting toil. How dense are +these virgin forests of bronze and stone; and of all these thousands of +streets 'à poumons lourds et haletants, vers on ne sait quels buts +inquiétants,'[5] not one seems to lead into the open, into the light of +day. Monotonous, like dull eyes, glare the millions of windows; and the +darksome caverns in which men, themselves like machines, sit by +machines, thunder in the unseizable rhythm of petrified exertion. Not a +ray is reflected on them from the eternal; hostile, repulsive, and grey +the town pants in the puffed smoke of her daily labour. But night, +softening all harsh lines, fierily welds the lumbering limbs together +into something new. By night the town is turned into one great +seduction. Passion, fettered in the day-time, breaks its chains: + + ... Pourtant, lorsque les soirs + Sculptent le firmament de leurs marteaux d'ébène, + La ville au loin s'étale et domine la plaine + Comme unnocturne et colossal espoir; + Elle surgit: désir, splendeur, hantise; + Sa clarté se projette en lueurs jusqu'aux cieux, + Son gaz myriadaire en buissons d'or s'attise, + Ses rails sont des chemins audacieux + Vers le bonheur fallacieux + Que la fortune et la force accompagnent; + Ses murs se dessinent pareils à une armée + Et ce qui vient d'elle encor de brume et de fumée + Arrive en appels clairs vers les campagnes.[6] + +These fiery eruptions Verhaeren shapes in grandiose visions. There is +the vision of the music halls: wheels of fire revolve round a house, +blazing letters climb up façades and lure the crowds to sit in front of +the brilliant footlights. I Here the people's hunger for sensation is +fed full, and art is cruelly murdered day by day. Here tedium is tamed +for an hour or so, and whipped up with colour, flame, and music for +another pleasure that is waiting outside, as soon as the illusion here +sinks into the night: + + Et minuit sonne et la foule s'écoule + --Le hall fermé--parmi les trottoirs noirs; + Et sous les lanternes qui pendent, + Rouges, dans la brume, ainsi que des viandes, + Ce sont les filles qui attendent....[7] + +they the harlots, 'les promeneuses,' 'les veuves d'elles-mêmes,'[8] who +live on the sensual hunger of the masses. For sensual pleasure too is +organised in cities, is guided into canals, like all instincts. But the +primordial instinct is the same. The hunger which out in the fields and +in the country was still pleasure in healthy food, in frothing beer, has +here been converted into the idea of money. Money is what everybody +hungers for here; money is the meaning of the town. 'Boire et manger de +l'or'[9] is the hot dream of the crowd. Everything is expressed by +money, 'tout se définit par des monnaies';[10] all values are +subordinate to this new value, monetary value. Superb is the vision of +the bazaar, where, on all the counters, in the many stories, everything +is sold, not only as in reality objects in common use, but, in a loftier +symbolism, ethical values as well: convictions and opinions, fame and +name, honour and power, all the laws of life. But all this fiery blood +of money flows together in the great heart of the city, flows into the +Exchange, that greedy maw that swallows all the gold and spits it out +again, which smelts all this hectic fever and then pours it flaming into +all the veins of the city. Everything can be bought, even pleasure: in +back streets, in _l'étal_, in the haunts where debauch lies in wait, +women sell themselves as goods are sold in the bazaar. But this energy +is not always regulated, not always made to flow between dikes. Here +too, as in Nature, there are sudden catastrophes. Sometimes revolt is +kindled, flashes up instantaneously, and this stream of money blazes +itself a new trail. The masses pour out of their dismal caverns, greed +takes possession of men, and the myriad-headed monster fights and bleeds +for this one thing, this red-burning, relucent gold. + +But the great and powerful thing in these towns is not passion; it is +the hidden strength behind these passions, the noble order that keeps +them in their proper limits, and holds them in check. This rumbling +chaos, this inundation of things doomed to die, is dominated in the +_Villes Tentaculaires_ by three or four figures standing like +statues--the tamers of passions. They are what kings and priests were of +old, they who have the power of bridling ebullient energies and turning +them to use. With hands of iron they hold down this wild and dangerous +animal, they, the new rulers, statesmen, generals, demagogues, +organisers. For the town is an animal in its movements, a beast in its +passions, a brute in its instincts, a monster in its strength. It is +ugly, like all rut. It cannot be contemplated with a pure pleasure, like +a landscape gently and harmoniously fading in forest verdure; it rather +evokes, at first, loathing, hatred, caution, and hostility. But that is +the great thing in Verhaeren, that he always overcomes whatever is +hostile, pain and torment, by a great vista, that in this panting steam +of the unæsthetic he already sees the flame of the new beauty. Here for +the first time is, seen the beauty of factories, _les usines +rectangulaires,_ the fascination of a railway station, the new beauty in +the new things. If the town is indeed ugly in its denseness, ugly in the +sense of all classical ideals; if the picture of it is indeed I cruel +and frightful; it is yet not unfertile. 'Le siècle et son horreur se +condensent en elle, mais son âme contient la minute éternelle.' And this +I feeling, that in her the minute of eternity is contained, that she is +the new thing risen above all the pasts, a new thing that one must +perforce come to terms with, this feeling makes her momentous and +beautiful to the poet. If her form is loathsome, grey, and sombre, her +idea, her organisation, are grandiose and admirable. And here, as +always, where admiration finds a pivot, it can give the whole world the +swing from negation to assent. + +But Verhaeren is by this time too little of an artist, too much +interested in all the problems of life, to be able to contemplate the +idea of the modern city from the æsthetic side alone. It is for him a +still more important symbol for the expression of contemporary feeling. + +Not only the problem of the new social stratification is poetically +digested in his trilogy, but also one of the most burning and pressing +questions of political economy as of politics, the struggle between the +centrifugal and the centripetal power, the struggle between agrarianism +and industrialism. Town and country purchase their prosperity, the one +by the impoverishment of the other. Production and trade, however much +one is the condition of the other, at their extreme points are hostile +forces. And how, in our days in Europe, the victory between town and +country is being decided in favour of the town; how, gradually, the town +is absorbing the best strength of the provinces--the problem of the +_déracinés_--this has for the first time in poetry been described by +Verhaeren in his magnificent vision of _Les Villes Tentaculaires_. The +cities have sprung up like mushrooms. Millions have conglomerated. But +where have they come from? From what sources have these immense masses +suddenly streamed into the mighty reservoirs? The answer is quick to +come. The heart of the city is fed with the oozing blood of the country. +The country is impoverished. As though they were hallucinated, the +peasants migrate to where gold is minted, to the town that in the +evenings flames across the horizon; to where alone riches lies, and +power. They march away with their carts, to sell their last stick of +furniture, their last rags; they march away with their daughter, to +deliver her up to lust; they march away with their son, to let him +perish in the factories; they march away to dip their hands, they also, +in this roaring river of gold. The fields are deserted. Only the +fantastic figures of idiots stagger along lonely paths; the abandoned +flour-mills are empty, and only turn when the wind smites against them. +Fever rises from the marshes, where the water, no longer gathered into +dikes, spreads putrefaction and pestilence. Beggars drag themselves from +door to door, with the country's barrenness reflected in their eyes; to +the last lingering cultivators come, sinuously, their worst enemies, +_les donneurs de mauvais conseils_. The emigration agent entices them to +wander to the lands of gold, and they squander what they have inherited +from their ancestors, to seek a far-distant hope: + + Avec leur chat, avec leur chien, + Avec, pour vivre, quel moyen? + S'en vont, le soir, par la grand'route.[11] + +And they who are not enticed away by emigration are evicted from hearth +and home by usurers. Villages in which the dance of the kermesse has +long been silent are of a sudden cut in two by a network of railways. +There is no fairness in the fight. The country is conquered because the +blood of its inhabitants has been sucked out of it. 'La plaine est morte +et ne se défend plus.'[12] Everything streams to Oppidomagnum. This is +the name given by Verhaeren in his symbolical drama _Les Aubes_--which, +with the _Campagnes Hallucinées_ and the _Villes Tentaculaires_ forms +the trilogy of the social revolution--to the monster city. This, with +its arms as of a polypus, pitilessly sucks all the strength of the +district round it. From all sides strength streams in upon it. 'Tous les +chemins se rythment vers elle.' Not only from the country does she drink +the strength of men, all the ocean seems to be pouring its waters only +to her port. 'Toute la mer va vers la ville.'[13] The whole sea streams +to the city; all the rolling waves seem only to exist that they may +bring to her this wandering forest of ships. And she absorbs everything, +digests it in the 'noire immensité des usines rectangulaires,'[14] +greedily devours it, to spit it out again as gold. + +But this immense social struggle between the country and the town +expresses, like the other new phases, something yet higher. It is only a +momentary symbol of an eternal schism. The country is the symbol of the +Conservatives. In the country the forms of labour are petrified, calm, +and regular; there life is without haste, and only regulated by the +rotation of the seasons. All sensations, all forms are pure and simple. +These men stand nearer to the freaks of chance: a flash of lightning, a +hailstorm can destroy their labour; and so they fear God, and do not +dare to doubt in Him. The town, however, symbolises progress. In the +thunder of the streets of to-day no Madonna's voice is heard; the life +of the individual is protected from chance by prearranged order; the +fever of the new creates also a yearning for new conditions of life, new +circumstances, for a new God. + + L'esprit des campagnes était l'esprit de Dieu; + Il eut la peur de la recherche et des révoltes, + Il chut; et le voici qui meurt, sous les essieux + Et sous les chars en feu des récoltes.[15] + +If the country was the past, the town is the future. The country only +seeks to keep what it has, to preserve: its character, its beauty, its +God. But the town must first of all create, must make itself the new +beauty, the new faith, and the new God. + + Le rêve ancien est mort et le nouveau se forge. + Il est fumant dans la pensée et la sueur + Des bras fiers de travail, des fronts fiers de lueurs, + Et la ville l'entend monter du fond des gorges + De ceux qui le portent en eux + Et le veulent crier et sangloter aux cieux.[16] + +But we, Verhaeren thinks, must not belong to this world of the past, +this moribund world; no, we who live in towns must think with them, must +live with the new age, create in league with it, and find a new language +for its dumb yearning. A return to nature is no longer possible for us: +evolution cannot be screwed back again. If we have lost great values, we +must replace them by new; if our religious feeling for the old God is +cold and dead, we must create new ideals. We must find new aims that our +ancestors knew not of; in the new forms of the city we must find a new +beauty, in her noises a new rhythm, in her confusion an order, in her +energy an object, in her stammering a language. + +If the towns have destroyed much, they will perhaps create still more. +In their melting-pot professions, races, religions, nations, languages +are blended: + + ...les Babels enfin réalisées + Et les peuples fondus et la cité commune + Et les langues se dissolvant en une.[17] + +'The old order changeth, giving place to new'; and we must not ask +whether the new is better than the old; we must trust that it is so. +The feverish convulsions of the great cities, this unrest, this +screaming torment, cannot be in vain. For they, these pains and +convulsions, are only the birth-throes of the new. But he who has been +the first to feel, with a glad presentiment, this pain of the masses, +this fermentation, as joy, this unrest as hope, must himself be an +authentic new man, one of those who are called to give a poetic answer +to all the complaints and questions of our time. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] 'L'Âme de la Ville' (_Les Villes Tentaculaires_). + +[2] Ibid. (_Ibid._). + +[3] 'La Foule' (_Les Visages de la Vie_). + +[4] 'Les Villes' (_Les Flambeaux Noirs_). + +[5] 'L'Âme de la Ville' (_Les Villes Tentaculaires_). + +[6] 'La Ville' (_Les Campagnes Hallucinées_). + +[7] 'Les Spectacles' (_Les Villes Tentaculaires_). + +[8] 'Les Promeneuses' (_Ibid_.). + +[9] 'La Bourse' (_Ibid._). + +[10] 'Le Bazar' (_Ibid._). + +[11] 'Le Départ' (_Les Campagnes Hallucinées_). + +[12] 'La Plaine' (_Les Villes Tentaculaires_). + +[13] 'Le Port' (_Ibid._). + +[14] 'La Plaine' (_Ibid._). + +[15] 'Vers le Futur' (_Les Villes Tentaculaires_). + +[16] 'L'Âme de la Ville' (_Les Villes Tentaculaires_). + +[17] 'Le Port'(_Ibid._). + + + + +THE MULTITUDE + + Mets en accord ta force avec les destinées + Que la foule, sans le savoir, + Promulgue, en cette nuit d'angoisse illuminée. + É.V., 'La Foule.' + + +That great event which is the modern city was at bottom only possible by +the organisation of the mighty multitudes of the people and the +distribution of their forces. To organise is to weld unlike forces +economically into an organism, to imitate something that has life and +soul, in which nothing is superfluous and everything is necessary; it is +to give a material its uniform strength, to give an idea the flesh and +bones of its shape and of its possibility. Now the town has smelted the +scattered forces of the country into a new material--into the multitude; +it has converted much that used to be individually active force into +mechanical force; it has humbled man to the condition of a handle, a +rolling wheel; it has everywhere tied up the individuality of the single +man in order to produce a new individuality, that of the crowd. For the +multitude as a fact is a new thing. For centuries it was only a symbol, +an idea. The inhabitants of whole countries were logically epitomised in +a number, but with no suggestion of thus comprehending their immediate +unity. Of course, in times past great armies have been known, hordes of +fighting men and nomad tribes; but these only represented a volatile +concentration, too unsettled, too inconstant to procreate an +individuality, an æsthetic and moral value. And even those armies whose +legendary greatness echoes down the centuries, the hordes of Tamerlaine, +the hosts of the Persians, the legions of Rome, how poor is their number +in comparison with the masses of human beings daily herded together in +New York or London or Paris! Only in our own days, only in Oppidomagnum, +has the multitude been welded together finally and for all time, been +hooked together with bands of steel like the wheels of an immense +machine; only recently has the crowd become a living being that grows +and multiplies like a forest. Democracy has given it new intellectual +forms, set a brain in the body, by making the multitude determinate, +subject only to itself. It is a creation of the nineteenth century; it +is a new value in our lives, and one that we must come to terms with; no +less a value for our evolution than the highest values of the past. Walt +Whitman, to whom one must constantly refer in dealing with Verhaeren's +work, although--let it be expressly stated here--Verhaeren quite +independently and unconsciously arrived at the same goal from the same +starting-point, once said: 'Modern science and democracy seemed to be +throwing out their challenge to poetry to put them in its statements in +contradistinction to the songs and myths of the past.'[1] And every +modern poet will have to come to terms with the masses of democracy, +will have to contemplate them synthetically as an individual living +being, as a man, or as a God. In his Utopian drama _Les Aubes_ Verhaeren +has ranged them among the dramatis personæ, and, to express his inner +vision, he has added this stage direction: 'Les groupes agissent comme +un seul personnage à faces multiples et antinomiques.' For, like the +images of Indian gods, they have a hundred arms, but their cry is in +unison; their will is simple; their energy is uniform; one and the same +is their heart, 'le coeur myriadaire et rouge de la foule.'[2] A +hundred years of life in communion, a hundred years of distress in +common, of hope in common, have welded them together into one unity, +into one new feeling. Sleepless and restless like a dangerous animal +lies the multitude in the monster cities; all the passions of individual +man are hers, vanity, hunger, anger; she has all vices and crimes in +common with her smallest member, man; only, everything in her is +intensified to unknown magnitudes. Everything in her passions is +stupendously superdimensional, beyond calculation, and, in a new sense, +divine. For just as the gods of old were formed after the image of man, +save that they represented man's strength and intelligence magnified to +the hundredth degree, the multitude is the synthesis of individual +forces, the most prolific accumulation of passion. + +With the multitude the individual comes into being, and without her he +perishes. Consciously or unconsciously, every man is subject to her +power. For the modern man is no longer free from the influence of +others, as the tiller of the fields was in olden days, or the shepherd, +or the hunter, each of whom was dependent only on the anger of heaven, +the whims of the earth, on weather and hailstorms, on chance, which he +clad in the august image of his god. The modern man is in all his +feelings determined by the world around him, set in his place in the +ranks, and moved with the ranks like a shuttle to and fro; he is a +dependent in his instincts. We all feel socially; we cannot think away +the others who are round us and in front of us any more than we can +think away the air that nourishes us. We can flee from them, but we +cannot flee away from what has penetrated us from them. For the +multitude rules us like a force of nature, nourishes us with its +feelings. The unsocial man is a fiction. Just as little as in a great +city one can shut off one's room entirely from the noise, the rhythm of +the street, just so little can one think isolatedly, just so little can +the soul keep itself at a distance from the great intellectual +excitements of the multitude. Verhaeren himself made the attempt in the +days when he wrote the verses: + + Mon rêve, enfermons-nous dans ces choses lointaines + Comme en de tragiques tombeaux.[3] + +But the life of reality claimed him again; for society destroys him who +turns away from her, as one is destroyed who shuts himself out from the +fresh air. The poet, too, must involuntarily think with the multitude +and of the multitude. For to the same extent as democracy has exercised +its levelling influence, to the same extent as it has limited +individualities, enrolled the poet among the class of citizens, +diminished the contrasts of chance, it has at the same time matured new +forces in their multiplicity. In democracy the modern poet can find +everything for which the ancients felt constrained to discover gods, +those incalculable forces which bind the individual like enchantment. +The town, the multitude feeds his energy with its exhaustless abundance; +it multiplies his own strength. For everything the individual has lost +is stored in it, great heroism and ecstatic enthusiasm. It is the great +source of the unexpected and the incalculable in our days, the new thing +concerning which no one knows how great it will grow. To have seen in it +an enrichment, instead of a restriction, of the poetic instinct, is one +of the great merits of Verhaeren. For while the majority of +contemporary poets still maintain the fiction of the recluse in his +wistful loneliness, while they recoil from before the multitude as +though from men stricken with the plague, while they create for +themselves an artificial seclusion, and heedlessly go their way past +locomotives and telegraphs, banks and workshops, Verhaeren drinks +greedily from these sources of new strength. + + Comme une vague en des fleuves perdue, + Comme une aile effacée, au fond de l'étendue, + Engouffre-toi, + Mon coeur, en ces foules battant les capitales! + Réunis tous ces courants + Et prends + Si large part à ces brusques métamorphoses + D'hommes et de choses, + Que tu sentes l'obscure et formidable loi + Qui les domine et les opprime + Soudainement, à coups d'éclairs, s'inscrire en toi.[4] + +For she, 'la foule,' the multitude, is the great transposer of values in +our day. She takes into her bosom and transforms the men who come to her +from the country, from the four winds of heaven; none of us escapes her +levelling power. The most distant races are blended in the city's huge +melting-pot, are adapted to one another, and forthwith become a new +thing, a different thing, a new race, the new race of contemporary man, +who has made his peace with the atmosphere of the great city, who not +only painfully feels the depression of her walls and his divorce from +Nature, but creates himself a new strength and a new feeling of the +universe in this manifold human presence. The great feat of the +multitude is that it accelerates the process of changing values. The +individual elements perish in favour of this individuality of a new +community. Old communities lose their unity, new communities must arise. +America is the first example: here, in a hundred years, one single great +brotherhood, a new type, has been developed from the forces of a +thousand peoples; and in our capitals, in Paris, Berlin, and London, +people are already growing up who are not Frenchmen and not Germans, but +in the first place only Parisians and Berliners, who have a different +accent, a different way of thinking, whose native land is the great +city, the multitude. The inhabitant of the great city, the democratic +man of the multitude, is a sharply defined character. If he is a poet, +his poetry must be social; if he is a thinker, the intelligence of the +masses, the instinct of the many, must be his also. To have attempted +the psychology of this multitude for the first time in poetry is one of +the great feats of audacity for which we must be grateful to Verhaeren. + +But these individual accumulations of men into a multitude, these +combinations of millions into towns, are not isolated. One bond holds +them all together: modern traffic. The distances of reality have +disappeared, and with them national divisions as well. By the side of +the problem of individual conglomerations which only slowly are +transformed into organisms, by the side of the individual races, the +individual masses, now arises a greater synthesis, the synthesis of the +European race. For the men of our continent are no longer so distant, so +strange to one another as they formerly were. Social democracy with its +organisation encompasses the masses from one end of Europe to the other. +To-day the same desires fire the men of Paris, London, St. Petersburg, +Vienna, and Rome. And already one common formula directs their +exertions: money. + + Races des vieux pays, forces désaccordées, + Vous nouez vos destins épars, depuis le temps + Que l'or met sous vos fronts le même espoir battant.[5] + +Independently of the frontiers of countries, on a broad-based +foundation, a unified race, a new community, the European, is in process +of formation. Here desire and reality are near touching. Verhaeren sees +Europe already united by one great common energy. Europe is for him the +land of consciousness. While other continents, distant as though in a +dream, are still living a vegetative life, while Africa and India are +still dreaming as they dreamt in the darkness of primitive times, Europe +is 'la forge où se frappe l'idée,'[6] the great smithy in which all +differences, all individual observations, all results, are hammered and +moulded into a new intellectuality, into _European consciousness_. The +union is not yet inwardly complete; states are still hostile and +ignorant of their community; but already 'le monde entier est repensé +par leurs cervelles.'[7] Already they are working at the transvaluation +of all feeling in the European sense. For a new system of ethics, a new +system of æsthetics, will be required by the European, who, rich by the +past, strong in the feeling of the multitude, is now conscious of +drawing his strength from new masses. Here it is that Verhaeren's work +sings over into Utopia; and in _Les Aubes_, the epilogue to _Les Villes +Tentaculaires,_ this glittering rainbow rises over the visions of +reality to the new ideal; the prophetic dream of a better future rises +over the still struggling present. + +This yearning for the European has been expressed for the first time in +poetry by Verhaeren, almost contemporaneously with Walt Whitman's +hailing of the American and Friedrich Nietzsche's prophecy of the +superman. It would be a tempting task, and full of interest, to set up +the Pan-European in antithesis to the Pan-American. But to say that +Verhaeren was the first of lyric poets to feel as consciously European +as Walt Whitman felt American, is to establish his rank among the most +considerable men of our time. Verhaeren is possibly the only lyric poet +who has felt in accordance with contemporary feeling. That epitomises +his whole claim to gratitude, for it sufficiently expresses the fact +that he has taken to his heart the problem of the multitude; the energy +of social innovations; the æsthetics of organisation; the grandeur of +mechanical production; in a word, the poetry of material things. It is +our own time, the new age, that speaks in his verse; and it speaks in +its new language. This rhythm which he has discovered is no literary +abstraction, but beats in perfect unison with the heart-beat of the +crowd; it is an echo of the panting of our monster cities, of the +clanking of trains, of the cry of the people; his language is new, +because it is no longer the voice of one man, but unites in itself the +many voices of the multitude. He has penetrated deeper than any other +man into the feeling of the masses, and their surf echoes more strongly +in his verse. The hollow rumbling, the bestial and tameless strength of +their voice, the surf of the multitude, has here become shape and music, +the highest identity. With pride one can say of Verhaeren what he +himself vaunts in his 'Captain': 'Il est la foule,'[8] he himself is the +multitude. + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] _A Backward Glance O'er Travelled Roads._ + +[2] 'La Conquête (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[3] 'Sous les Prétoriens' (_Au Bord de la Route_). + +[4] 'La Foule' (_Les Visages de la Vie_). + +[5] 'La Conquête' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[6] _Ibid. (Ibid.)._ + +[7] 'La Conquête' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[8] 'Le Capitaine' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + + + + +THE RHYTHM OF LIFE + + Dites, les rythmes sourds dans l'univers entier! + En définir la marche et la passante image + En un soudain langage; + . . . . . . . . . . . . . . + Prendre et capter cet infini en un cerveau, + Pour lui donner ainsi sa plus haute existence. + É.V., 'Le Verbe'. + + +The rhythm of modern life is a rhythm of excitement. The city with its +multitudes is never completely at rest: even in its repose, in its +silence, there is a secret bubbling as of lava in the bowels of a +volcano, a waiting and watching, a nervous tension tinged with fever. +For the idea of energy in the myriad-headed monster city is so +concentrated, so intensified, that it never loses its rumbling activity. +Rest, a polar feeling, would be the inner negation, the annihilation, of +this new element. True, the city with her teeming masses is not always +in the fever-throes of those great eruptions of passion when through the +arteries of her streets the blood streams suddenly; when all her muscles +seem to contract; when cries and enthusiasm blaze up like a flame; but +always something seems to be expecting this fiery second, just as in +modern man there is always the whipped unrest that is avid of new +things, new experiences. Modern cities are in perpetual vibration; and +so is the multitude from man to man. Even if the individual is not +excited, if his nerves are not always stirring with his own vibration, +they are yet always vibrating in harmony with the obscure resonance of +the universe. The great city's rhythm beats in our very sleep; the new +rhythm, the rhythm of our life, is no longer the regular alternation of +relaxation and repose, it is the steady vibration of an unintermitted +activity. + +Now, a modern poet who wishes to create in real harmony with +contemporary feeling must himself have something of the perpetual +excitement, the unremitting watchfulness, the restless and nervous +sensitiveness of our time; his heart must unconsciously beat in tact +with the rhythm of the world around him. But not only unrest must +flicker in him, not only must that excessive delicacy of feeling which +is almost morbid be in him, this neurasthenic sleeplessness--not only +the negative element of our epoch, but the grandiose as well, the +superdimensional, the spontaneity of the sudden discharge of forces held +in reserve, the overwhelming force of the great eruption. Like the +masses of our towns, he must be so fashioned that a trifle will +stimulate him to the greatest passion, must be so fashioned that he +cannot help being carried away by the intoxication of his own strength. +Just as the masses have, so to speak, organised themselves as a body, +so that there is no individual excitement in them, no irritation and +inflammation of any single part, but so that a reaction of the whole +body responds to every separate irritation, just in the same manner must +the excitement of a modern, a contemporary poet, a poet of a great town, +never be the excitement of a single sense, but, if it is to be strong, +it must quiver through the whole body like an electric shock. His poetic +rhythm must therefore be physically vital; it must envelop all his +feeling and thinking; it must respond to every individual irritation, to +every individual sensation, with the massed weight of feeling of all his +vital forces: the need of a rhythm strained to the full must be, as +Nietzsche has so wonderfully demonstrated in his _Ecce Homo_! a measure +for the strength of the inspiration, a sort of balancing, as it were, of +the pressure and tension of the inspiration. For the poet of to-day, if +he does not wish to remain the poet of the eternal yesterday, must, as a +microcosm, imitate in his passion the macrocosm of the multitude, +wherein also the excitement of the individual is trivial and aimless, +and only the ebullition of the whole fermenting mass is irresistible and +momentous. + +Then, in such poems, the _rhythm of modern life_ will break through. At +this moment we must remember what rhythm really means. The rhythm of a +being is in the last instance nothing but its breathing. Everything that +is alive, every organism, has breath, the interchange and resting-space +between giving and taking. And so breathes a poem too; and it is +worthless if it is not a living thing, if it is not an organism, a body +with a soul. Only in its rhythm does it become alive, as man does in his +breathing. But the diversity, the originality of the rhythm only arises +from the alternation of these drawn breaths. Breathing is different in +those who are calm, excited, joyous, nervous, oppressed, ecstatic. Every +sensation produces its corresponding rhythm. And since every poet in his +individuality represents a new form of inner passion, his poem too must +have this rhythm of his own, the rhythm which expresses his personal +poetic peculiarity just as characteristically as his speaking expresses +an individual accent and dialect. To understand Verhaeren's rhythm we +must remember this basic form of the poetic feeling at the heart of him; +we must compare it with the feeling at the heart of those who have gone +before him. In Victor Hugo there was the earnest, great, soaring rhythm +of the loud speaker, of the preacher who never addresses individuals but +always the whole nation; in Baudelaire there was the regular hymnic +rhythm of the priest of art; in Verlaine the irregular, sweet, and +gentle melody of one speaking in dreams. In Verhaeren, now, there is the +rhythm of a man hurrying, rushing, running; of a restless, passionate +man; the rhythm of the modern, of the Americanised man. It is often +irregular; you hear in it the panting of one who is hunted, who is +hurrying to his goal; you hear his impact with the obstacles he stumbles +against, the sudden standstill of intemperate effort exhausted. But with +him the rhythmic energy is never intellectual, never verbal, never +musical; it is purely emotional, physical. Not only the end of the nerve +vibrates and sounds; not only does the language shake the air; but out +of the whole organism, as though all the nerve-strings had suddenly +begun to sound the alarm, burst the terror and the ecstasy of fever. His +poem is never a state of repose--no more than the multitude is ever +quite repose--it is in a true sense rhythm, passion set in motion. You +feel the excitement of the man in it, motion, the covering of a +distance, activity; never contemplation comfortably resting, or dream +girt with sleep. And as a matter of fact, it is from motion in the +physical sense that nearly all his poems have arisen: Verhaeren has +never composed poetry at his writing-table, but while wandering over the +fields with a rhythmically moved body whose accelerated pace pulses to +the very heart of the poem, or while rushing along through the din and +bustle of streets in great cities. In these poems is that quicker +rolling of the blood that comes from exercise, that jerk of unrest and +passion tearing themselves away from repose. You feel that in this man +feeling is too strong, that he would fain free himself from it, run away +from it in his own body. The feeling is so strong that it turns to +pain, or rather pressure, and the poem is nothing else than the erection +that precedes relief, the throes that bring forth out of pregnancy. Just +as the multitude in revolt bursts the bonds of its excitement and +launches of a sudden all the passion dammed back for centuries, so +springs from the poet like a geyser the passionate assault of words +bursting from too long silence. These cries are a physical relief. These +'élans captifs dans le muscle et la chair '[1] are the relief of a +convulsion, the easy breathing after oppression. As a passionate man is +forced to relieve himself by gestures, or in a fit of rage, or in cries, +or in weeping, or in some other state opposed to rest, the poet +discharges his feeling in rhythmic words: 'L'homme à vous prononcer +respirait plus à l'aise'[2] he has said of the man who was the first to +force the excess of his feeling into speech. + +_It is, then, a force positively physical which produces Verhaeren's +rhythm._ It is difficult to prove such an assertion, for the state of +creation is unconscious and unapproachable, although it may intuitively +be detected in those moments of recreation, in that second of a new +birth when a poet recites his work, when he feels, as it were, the +pressure of the feeling weighing upon him artificially in recollection, +when by the force of his imagination he relieves himself again as at the +birth of the poem. And any one who has once heard Verhaeren reciting +poetry will know how much with him the rhythm of body and poem is one +and indivisible, how the excitement that becomes rhythmical in the +vibrating word is at the same time converted into the identical gesture. +The calm eyes grow keen, they seem to pierce the near paper; the arm is +raised commandingly, and every finger of the hand is stretched out to +mark the cæsura as though with an electric shock; to hammer the verses; +and with the voice to eject the hurrying and almost screaming words into +the room. In his movements there is then that terrific effort of one who +would fain tear himself away from himself, that sublimest gesture of the +poet striving away from the earth, striving away from himself, from the +heavy gait of words to winged passion. Man coalesces with Nature in one +second of the most wonderful identity: + + Les os, le sang, les nerfs font alliance + Avec on ne sait quoi de frémissant + Dans l'air et dans le vent; + On s'éprouve léger et clair dans l'espace, + On est heureux à crier grâce, + Les faits, les principes, les lois, on comprend tout; + Le coeur tremble d'amour et l'esprit semble fou + De l'ivresse de ses idées.[3] + +Every time that Verhaeren reads his poetry, this re-birth of the first +creative state is renewed. _It is in the first place a deliverance from +pain, and in the second place it is pleasure_. Again and again the word +darts along like a beast let loose; in the wildest rhythm; in a rhythm +that begins slowly, cautiously; quickens; then grows wilder and wilder; +grows to an intoxicating monotony, an ever-increasing speed, a rattling +din that reminds one of an express whizzing along at full speed. Like a +locomotive--for in Verhaeren's case one has to think in images of this +kind, and not in outworn tropes as of Pegasus--the poem rushes on, +driven only by a measure which reminds one of the short explosions of an +automobile. And as a matter of fact the scansion of the locomotive, its +restless rattling, has often been the cause of the rhythmic velocity of +his verses. Verhaeren himself is fond of relating that he has often, and +with delight, written poems on railway journeys, and that the cadence of +his verse has then been fired by the regular rattle of the train. He +describes wonderfully the rapture of the speed poured into his blood by +the whizzing past of trains. The whistling of the wind in moaning trees, +the dashing of the foaming sea along the shore, the echo a thousand +times repeated of thunder in the mountains, all these strong sounds have +become rhythm in his poems; all noisy things, all violent, swift +emotions have made it brusque, angry, and excited: + + Oh! les rythmes fougueux de la nature entière + Et les sentir et les darder à travers soi! + Vivre les mouvements répandus dans les bois, + Le sol, les vents, la mer et les tonnerres; + Vouloir qu'en son cerveau tressaille l'univers; + Et pour en condenser les frissons clairs + En ardentes images, + Aimer, aimer, surtout la foudre et les éclairs + Dont les dévorateurs de l'espace et de l'air + Incendient leur passage![4] + +But this is the new thing in Verhaeren, that he has transformed into +rhythm not only the voice of Nature, but also the new noises, the +grumbling of the multitude, the raging of cities, the rumbling of +workshops. Often in his rhythm can be heard the beat of hammers; the +hard, edged, regular whizzing of wheels; the whirring of looms; the +hissing of locomotives; often the wild, restless tumult of streets; the +humming and rumbling of dense masses of the people. Poets before him +imitated in the harmony of their verse the monotony of sources and the +babbling of water over pebbles, or the soughing voice of the wind. But +he makes the voice of the new things speak; makes the rhythm of the +city, this rhythm of fever and of unrest, this nervous moving of the +crowd, this unquiet billowing of a new ocean, flow over into his new +poem. Hence this up and down in his verses; this suddenness and +unexpectedness; this incalculable element. _The new, the industrial +noises have here become the music of poetry_. Since he does not seek to +express his own individual sensation of life, but would himself only be +a voice for the multitude, the rhythm is more roaring and restless than +that of any individual being. Like the first poets, those of old time, +before whom there were no outworn and exhausted words; like the poets +whose feeling burst into flame at every word, every cry; who discovered +themselves 'en exaltant la souffrance, le mal, le plaisir, le bien'; +like them when they + + ... confrontaient à chaque instant + Leur âme étonnée et profonde + Avec le monde,[5] + +poets who would be modern must compare their own soul with that of their +time, must always regulate their rhythm according to the mutation of +their time. Their deepest yearning must be to find not only their own +personal expression, but over and above it the poetic and musical +representation of the highest identity between themselves and their +time. For poets are the inheritors of a great patrimony: + + ... En eux seuls survit, ample, intacte et profonde, + L'ardeur + Dont s'enivrait, devant la terre et sa splendeur, + L'homme naïf et clair aux premiers temps du monde; + C'est que le rythme universel traverse encor + Comme aux temps primitifs leur corps.[6] + +They must, in these days, only express themselves when they have first +adapted the rhythm of their own feeling to that of the universe, to the +rhythm of the cities they live in, to the rhythm of the multitude from +which they have grown, to the rhythm of temporal as of eternal things. +They must, like a vein in the heart of the world, reproduce every beat +of the great hammer, every excitement, quickening of pace and +obstruction of the feeling rolled round in the whole organism; they must +learn from life the rhythm which shall again achieve the great harmony +that was lost between the world and the work of art. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] 'Le Verbe' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[2] _Ibid._ (_Ibid._). + +[3] 'Les Heures où l'on crée' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[4] 'L'En-Avant' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[5] 'Le Verbe' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[6] _Ibid._ (_Ibid._). + + + + +THE NEW PATHOS + + Lassé des mots, lassé des livres. + . . . . . . . . . + Je cherche, en ma fierté, + L'acte qui sauve et qui délivre. + É.V., 'L'Action.' + +The primitive poem, that which came into being long before writing or +print, was nothing but a modulated cry that was hardly language, a cry +won from joy or pain, mourning or despair, recollection or passionate +entreaty, but always from fulness of feeling. It was pathetic, because +it was produced by passion; pathetic, because its intention was to +produce passion. The poem of those great and distant men who were the +first to find word and speech in the darted cry of feeling, was an +invocation of the crowd; an exhortation; a fiery incitement; an ecstasy; +a direct electric discharge of feeling to feeling. The poet spoke to the +others, an individual to a circle. The auditors stood before him in +expectation--somewhat as Max Klinger in his new picture has gathered +them together in front of blind Homer--they waited, watched, listened, +surrendered themselves, let themselves be carried away; or they +resisted. That poem and the delivery of it were not something finished +and presented for approval; no vessel or ornament already hammered into +shape and perfectly chiselled; they were something in the process of +creation, something newly growing at that moment, a struggle with the +hearer, a wrestling with him for his passion. + +Poets lost this close, glowing contact with the masses when writing was +invented. What the dissemination of the written word, and still more, in +after days, the infinite multiplication of printing, dowered them with; +all the new influence over spaces hitherto closed; the fact that their +words were henceforth alive in countries which they had never visited; +that men drew strength and inspiration and vital courage from their +words long after their own bodies had fallen into dust--this vast and +mighty effect had only been obtained by relinquishing that other and +perhaps not lesser effect--dialogue, that standing face to face with the +multitude. By slow degrees poets became something imaginary to the +public. When they spoke, they really only listened to themselves; more +and more their poem became a lonely colloquy with themselves; the +harangue became a monologue, more and more lyrical in a new sense and +less and less moving. More and more their poem travelled away from +speech; more and more it lost that mysterious, passionate fire that is +only fed by the moment, by standing face to face with an excited crowd, +by the magical influx of tension and stimulation out of the heart of +the hearer into the poet's own words. For, with his expectation, with +his eager eyes, his excitement, and his intractable impatience, every +listener does something for the speaker: he goads him; he forces +something of his expectant restlessness into the response that has not +yet been made. But the moment the poet no longer spoke to the crowd, no +longer to a circle, but fashioned his words for print and writing, a new +and peculiar sensation was developed in him. He accustomed himself to +speaking only for himself; to conceiving his own feeling as important, +irrespective of effect and force; to holding a conversation with none +but himself and silence. And his poem changed more and more. Now that +the poet no longer had the panting roar of the response, the cry of +passion, the exultation of enthusiasm, as the finale of his poetry--the +last accord, as it were, belonging to his own music--he sought to +complete the harmony in the verse by means of itself. He rounded his +poem with an artist's care, as though it were an earthenware vessel; +illumined it with colours like a picture; rilled it with music; more and +more he relinquished the idea of persuading, of convincing,.of +inspiring. He was content that the poem should have no feeling for other +men, and gave it only the life and the mood of his own world. In that +period of transition, we may suppose, 'poetic' diction first came into +being, that language by the side of the living language which petrified +more and more as time went on into a dialect hostile to the world, into +bloodless marble. Of old, the poetic language was not one that existed +side by side with the real language; it was only the last +intensification of the real language. By the rhythm of higher passion, +by the fire of harangue, it became a sacred fire, a blest intoxication, +a festivity in the work-a-day world. Thus, as intensified vitality, +language could be different without ever being unintelligible, could +remain with and yet above the people, while the lyric poetry of to-day +has become, for the most part, strange and worthless to active men who +live in the midst of realities, to the artisan and the toiler. + +Nevertheless in our own days there seem to be signs of a return to this +primitive close contact between the poet and his audience; a new pathos +is at its birth. The stage was the first bridge between the poet and the +multitude. But here the actor was still the intermediary of the spoken +word; the purely lyrical emotion was not an aim in itself, but only, for +three or four hours, a help in the illusion. However, the time of the +isolation of the poet from the crowd, which was formerly rendered +necessary by the great distances between nation and nation, seems now to +have been overcome by the shortening of space and by the +industrialisation of cities. To-day poets once again recite their verse +in lecture-halls, in the popular universities of America; nay, in +churches Walt Whitman's lines ring out into the American consciousness, +and what used to be created only by the seething seconds of political +crises--one might instance Petöfi declaiming his national anthem 'Talpra +Magyar' from the steps of the university to the revolutionary +crowd--occurs almost every day. Now again as of old the lyric poet seems +entitled to be, if not the intellectual leader of the time, at least he +who must excite and quell the passions of the time; the rhapsodist who +hails, kindles, and fans that holy fire, energy. The world seems to be +waiting for Him who shall concentrate all life in a flash of lightning +to light up all the deeps of darkness: + + Il monte--et l'on croirait que le monde l'attend, + Si large est la clameur des coeurs battant + À l'unisson de ses paroles souveraines. + Il est effroi, danger, affre, fureur et haine; + Il est ordre, silence, amour et volonté; + Il scelle en lui toutes les violences lyriques.[1] + +Certainly the poem which would speak to the multitude must be different +to the kind of poem that pleased our fathers. Above all, it must itself +be a will, an aim, an energy, an evocation. All the technical +excellence, the sweet music, the craft of vibrating rhythms, suppleness +and flexibility of language, must, in the new poem, no longer be an aim +in themselves, but only a means to kindle enthusiasm. Such a poem must +no longer be a sentimental dialogue between a hermit and some other +hermit, a stranger somewhere far away; it must no longer be the short, +hurriedly trembling voice which is silenced ere the word's flame has +blazed up in it; no, this new poem must be strongly exulting, richly +inspired, with a far horizon for its goal, and rushing on with +irresistible impetuosity. It is not written for gentle moods, but for +loud, resonant words. He who would quell the crowd must have the rhythm +of their own new and restless life in him; he who speaks to the crowd +must be inspired by the new pathos. And this new pathos, this 'pathos +which most of all accepts the world as it is' (in Nietzsche's sense), +is, above all, zest, is the strength and the will to create ecstasy. +This poem must not be sensitive and woebegone; it must not express a +personal grief that seeks to enlist the sympathies of others; no, it +must be inspired by a fulness of joy, by the will to create from joy +itself passion that cannot be held down. Only great feelings bear the +message to the crowd; small feelings, which can only in silence, as in +motionless air, rise above the ground, are dashed down again. _The new +pathos must contain the will, not to set souls in vibration, not to +provide a delicate, æsthetic sense of pleasure, but to fire to a deed._ +It must carry the hearer along with it; it must once again collect in +itself the scattered forces of the poet of old time; it must in the poet +recreate, for an hour, the demagogue, the musician, the actor, the +orator; it must snatch the word again off the paper into the air; it +must carefully entrust feeling as a secret treasure to the individual; +it must hurl this treasure into the surf of a multitude. Poems with such +a new pathos cannot be created by feeble, passive men, whose mood can be +changed at any minute by the world around them, but only by fighting +natures, who are governed by an idea, by the thought of a duty; who seek +to force their feeling on others; who elevate their inspiration to the +inspiration of the whole world. + +This new lyric pathos is in our days growing lustily into life again. +For centuries rhetoricians have been mocked at. The change of estimation +in Schiller's case from worship to sufferance is a lasting proof. And +let us remember that Nietzsche, the only German who in recent years has +influenced the world, was only able to do so by creating a new +rhetorical style--'I am the inventor of the dithyramb'--only by making +his _Zarathustra_ a preacher's book which insistently requires a loud, +resonant voice. In France it was Victor Hugo who first recognised the +necessity of direct address. But he, who, as it happens, stands on that +narrowest boundary-line which separates genius from talent, he of whom +one can say that he was either the least of the eternal, monumental +poets or the greatest of the minor, the derivative poets, he confined +himself to France, he never thought of any but the French nation--as +Walt Whitman never thought of any but the American nation--and, above +all, he had not the high place whence to speak to his nation. He would +have been greater if he had really had the tribune whence his thunder +and lightning might have reached the multitude, instead of being always +only a sinister grumbling from the background of exile. Of all the +hundred volumes of his work perhaps nothing will remain except that +commanding gesture of an orator which Rodin has perpetuated in his +statue, and which is nothing else than the will to move to passion. He +has created this will to pathos, but not the pathos itself; still, even +the effort is a great and memorable achievement. + +Victor Hugo's inheritance, which was ill administered by chatterers and +chauvinists, by Déroulède and such poets with their big drums and their +trumpet-flourishes, has been taken over in France by Verhaeren. And he +is the first whose voice again reaches the crowd, the first French +realisation of a pathos which has absolutely the effect of art and +poetry. He more than any other, he whose deepest delight it is to quell +a grandiose resistance, he the _évocateur prodigieux_, as Bersaucourt[2] +has called him, was entitled to the mastery of the living word. Whenever +I read a poem by Verhaeren, I am time after time astonished to find +myself, when I have begun by reading it to myself, suddenly forced to +read the words aloud; surprised to find myself reading them louder and +louder; surprised to find in my hand, in my whole body, the urgent need +awakening of the gesture that hails and kindles an audience. For so +strong is the passionateness of the original feeling, the inner cry and +appeal in the words, that it forces its way through the reproduction, +rings out loudly even from the dead letters. _All the great poems of +Verhaeren are filled with the yearning to be spoken aloud, vehemently, +in the zest and glow of passion_. If they are recited softly, they seem +to be quite without melody; if they are read calmly and stolidly, they +often seem hard, uneven, and abrupt. Many images recur with a certain +regularity, many adjectives are repeated as petrified ideas--the trick +of an orator who emphasises what is important by standing +expressions--but the moment the poem is read aloud it is all alive +again, the repetitions are suddenly revealed as superb instances of +excitement reaching its mark, the recurring images take their place as +regular milestones along a road rushing along wildly to the infinite. +Verhaeren's poetry is the communication of an ecstasy, communication not +in the sense of a secret to an individual, but of fire cast to kindle a +crowd. His poems never seem to be quite completed, but to have been +first created while being read, just as every good and fiery speech +gives the impression of being improvised; they are always the unfolding +of a state, a passionate analysis that acts like a discovery. They are +moving, not harmonious. Just as an orator does not shock his audience at +the very first with the conclusion of his reasoning, but pays out the +chain of his arguments slowly and logically, Verhaeren builds his poems +from visions, first in repose, then in the excitement that intensifies, +and then with burning horizons foaming over more and more wildly in +images. And these images again are rhetorical; they are not similes +which can only be understood in their totality by the roundabout way of +reflection; they are glaring flashes of lightning. A poem that would +move those who hear it has need of metaphors which not only hit the mark +of feeling, but which hit it immediately with deadly effect. They must +be glaring, because they have to force the whole feeling in the +expression of one second as quick as lightning. In this way the pathetic +poem produces a new form of sensuous expression, and in this way too it +creates itself a new rhythm of intensification. First of all, with the +lightnings of his metaphors Verhaeren illuminates the vast landscape of +visions; then, by a certain monotony of rhythm, he intensifies the +astonishment and excitement to the highest ecstasy. Repeatedly, at the +breathing-spaces of his great poems, you think you have reached the +summit, only to be whipped to a higher leap, to a higher outlook. 'Il +faut en tes élans te dépasser sans cesse';[3] this, his moral +commandment, is for him the highest poetical law as well. The deepest +will of his pathetic poem is to whip up, to set running, to snatch his +hearer along with him. 'Dites!' this summons which is like a gesture, +the urgent 'encore, encore!' are appeals which in his poems are +petrified into cries, just as every horseman has certain words to lure +the last strength from his horse. _Such words are nothing but transposed +oratorical gestures_. The hollow 'oh!' is the gesture of appeal; the +short 'qu'importe!' the gesture as of one who casts away a burden grown +too heavy; the slow, curving, far-sweeping 'immensément' is the heaping +up of all infinity. These poems are lashed into fever heat. For not only +do they themselves seek to fly like those other, the harmonious, the +really lyric poems, which with wings outspread seem to hover near the +clouds, they also seek to snatch up by force the whole heavy mass of the +audience. This is the explanation of the constant repetitions in the +poems, which are often very long, as though some last doubter were yet +to be convinced, as though fire were to be darted into the blood of some +last one yet immune. Everything strives forwards, forwards, dragging the +resister along with ecstatic power. + +And here are seen the dangers of pathos. The first danger, that into +which, for instance, Victor Hugo fell, was the emptiness, the hollowness +of the feeling, the covering over of a void by a mighty gesture; +enthusiasm resulting from a deliberate method, and not forced by inner +feeling. Empty phrasing is and remains the first danger of the pathetic +poem. The triteness of words 'plus sonores que solides'[4] is the +second. Here, however, in this new pathos, there is another and a new +peril, that of the over-heating of feeling, that of excessive, unhealthy +exaltation, which must then of necessity yield to exhaustion. No man can +be in a constant fever of excitement, in an unremitting state of +exaltation. And in these poems there is the will to unceasing ecstasy. +By the pathos, too, the purely lyrical values of the poem often fall +into danger. The will to be clear often forces the poet to a triteness +of wording; the terseness necessitates frequent repetition; the impulse +to build up an organic ecstasy often leads to excessive length. Owing to +its glaring, clear colours the language loses that mystical element of +lyric verse--the incommensurable, as Goethe called it--that magic hint +of a secret thing fleeing from the crowd and the light of day. But at +the same time this pathos signifies an immense enrichment of lyric +resources, a transvaluation of the word, by the very fact that it is not +exclusively intended for print but for declamation as well. The pathetic +poem is not, like the lyric poem, a crystallised impression; it is not +at the same time question and answer to itself; it is the expectation of +an answer. The great pathos, therefore, grows with success, and +involuntarily mingles in the poem the craving and the answer of the +poet's time. The voice of the poet is always as strong as the call that +goes out to him. Verhaeren found this new pathos in the course of his +development, because he no longer felt the voice of the crowd, of +cities, and of all the new things as a hindrance to his lyric poetry, +but as a challenge, as a rhetorical exhortation. And the more the world +around us becomes ponderous, grandiose, and passionate--the more it +becomes heroic in the concentration of its strength (heroic in that new +strength that Emerson preached)--so much the more, too, must lyric +poetry in the new sense, perhaps in Verhaeren's sense, be pathetic. +Gigantic impressions cannot be forced into petty impressions; vast +conceptions cannot be split up into mean fragments; a loud appeal needs +a loud answer. All art is more dependent than we are aware on its epoch. +The same secret dependence between demand and production seems to exist +in the sphere of art as exists in commerce. Laws that escape our +knowledge and cannot be prisoned in formulae can sometimes be glimpsed, +hazy as a presentiment, in fugitive intuition. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] 'Le Tribun' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[2] Albert de Bersaucourt, _Conférence sur Emile Verhaeren._ + +[3] 'L'Impossible' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[4] Albert Mockel, _Émile Verhaeren._ + + + + +VERHAEREN'S POETIC METHOD + + Je suis celle des surprises fécondes. + É.V., 'Celle des Voyages.' + + +A real poem must not exhibit an artificial structure of parts, a +mechanism; it must, like man himself, be organic, an indissoluble union +of soul and body. It must have a living body of flesh, the substance of +the word, the colour of the metaphors, the mechanism of the motion, the +skeleton of the thought; but over and above all that it must possess +that inexpressible something, the soul, which alone makes it organic; +the breath, the rhythm, that inseparable essence which is no longer +perceptible to intelligence, but only to feeling. It is not first in +this transcendental element, however, that the poet's personality is +revealed: the poetry of a great poet must be characteristic in its very +physis, in its very material. Side by side with that magic vibration, +that intangible element of feeling, the materiality too, the weaving of +the word, that net of expression in which the fugitive feeling is caught +in the waters of the hidden life and lifted into the light, these too +must be alone of their kind if they are to characterise the poet's race, +environment, and personality. This purely material organism of the poet +too is, like every living thing, subject to growth, to the change of +maturity and age. The structure of the poem, like every human face, must +gradually, in the revolution of the years, work its way to character +from the shifting features of childhood and the indistinctness of the +general type, must in its sensuous externals, in the physiognomy of the +material, show all psychic changes to the last acquisition of +personality. In a real poet the technical aspect, the handicraft, the +external element has a development that runs parallel to the +intellectual and poetic contents. In form, too, the poem must at first +represent a tradition, something that has been taken over; only in the +revolt of youth will it achieve a personal form, and this itself will +later, as it gradually grows cold and petrifies, represent an immutable +type. + +Verhaeren's poetry has its evolution and its history in this purely +formal sense. Even this poetry of Verhaeren's, which to-day looms so +immensely isolated and so victoriously characteristic in French +literature that a connoisseur can, without a shadow of doubt, recognise +the creator from a single stanza, has grown from a tradition, is the +climax of a certain culture, and is at the same time related to a +contemporary movement. When Verhaeren began to write, Victor Hugo, the +crowned king of French lyric poetry, was dead; Baudelaire was forgotten; +Paul Verlaine was still almost unknown. Victor Hugo's heirs, who +divided his kingdom as once the diadochi divided the kingdom of +Alexander the Great, were only able to preserve the trappings of the +glory gone, and the grandiloquence of their words contrasted ill with +their thin voices and artificial feelings. Against this circle, against +François Coppée, Catulle Mendès, Théodore de Banville and the rest of +them, rose up a new school of young men who called themselves 'decadents +and symbolists.' Here I must frankly admit that I am really unable to +explain this idea, perhaps for the very reason that I have read so many +varying definitions of it. The only thing that is certain is, that at +that time a group of young writers rose up in concert against a +tradition, and, in the most diverse experiments, sought a new lyrical +expression. What this new thing consisted in would be hard to say. The +truth is perhaps that all these poets were not French; that each of them +brought some new element from his own country, his own race, his own +past; that none of them felt that respect for the French tradition which +was in the blood of the native poets as an inward barrier, and thus were +able unconsciously to get nearer to their own artistic instinct. One +only needs to look at the names, which often at the first glance betray +the foreigner, the Americans Vielé-Griffin and Stuart Merrill, the +Belgians Verhaeren, Maeterlinck, and Mockel, or which, as in the case of +Jean Moréas, cover a complicated Greek name with a French pseudonym. +The only indisputable exploit of this group really was that about 1885 +they quickened the pace of French lyric poetry with a new unrest. +Mallarmé plunged his verses into a secret darkness of symbols, until the +words with their subterranean meaning almost became unintelligible, +while Verlaine gave his lines the dream-rapt lightsomeness of a music +never heard before. Gustave Kalm and Jules Laforgue were the first who +did away, the one with rhyme and the other with the Alexandrine, and +introduced the apparent irregularities of the _vers libre._ Each one did +his best on his own account to find something new, and all of them had +in common the same fiery eagerness to attack the idols of a derivative +poetry, the same ardent longing for a new form of expression. True, +their talent was soon choked up with sand, but that was because they +over-estimated the technical side of the innovations they introduced and +spent themselves in the investigation of theories, instead of developing +their own personalities. As time went on their paths diverged widely. +Many of them foundered in the sea of journalism; others are still, after +a lapse of twenty years, walking round in a circle in the footsteps of +their youth; and of the symbolists and decadents nothing is left but a +page or so of literary history, a faded sign-board marking an empty +shop. Verhaeren too was classed with them, although in my view he was +never essentially influenced by this school. A man of such sturdy +originality could not be more than stimulated by others, could not be +more than confirmed in his natural tendency to revolt. His attitude with +regard to the _vers libre_ was by no means due to this influence. For it +was not by suggestion from others, not by the instinct of imitation, but +by inward necessity, that he discovered his new form. It was not the +example of others that freed him from the fetters of tradition; he was +forced to free himself from them of his own accord. This inner +compulsion is alone of importance; for it is a matter of complete +indifference whether a poet writes by chance in regular verse or in +_vers libres_; the phenomenon can only be significant when a poet is of +necessity and by inner pressure forced to free himself from tradition +and to achieve a personal form. + +It was as a Parnassian that Verhaeren began. His first poetical +attempts, which he has never published, the verses he wrote at school +and in his first years at the university, showed him hypnotised by the +style of Lamartine and Victor Hugo. And even in the first two books he +published, in _Les Flamandes_ and _Les Moines_, there is not a single +poem in which Verhaeren has gone beyond his models. His poem is indeed +somewhat more mobile than the strict pattern of school exercises; it +already shows slight traces of the cracks which at a later day will +break the vessel to pieces. But this hint of insubordination was at +that time necessitated more by the harshness and rebelliousness of the +subject itself, by some stiffness or other in the turn of the phrase, +which can only be explained by the fact of the poet's alien race. Even a +foreigner can recognise that the verse is not rounded off, that the +rhythm is not balanced with the natural inevitable sense of form that a +man of Latin race would have, but that here a forceful will is with +difficulty constraining a barbaric temperament to harmony. Through his +French one can hear the massive language of his race, something of the +unwieldy strength we have in our old German ballads. And what his name +at the first glance betrayed--the foreigner--was to the finer ear of a +native easily perceptible from his French alone. + +The farther Verhaeren proceeded in his development--the nearer he got to +his real nature--the more the inheritance of his race in him revolted +against the shackles of tradition--so much the more intensive became the +impression of the Teutonic element in his verse. After all, development +is in most cases nothing more than the awakening in us of our buried +past. The highest demand of the Parnassian school, _impassibilité,_ an +immovableness as of bronze, is the antithesis of his stormy temperament, +which drives him along to a wild rhythm, not to harmony. Deep, guttural +notes vibrate in his verses, and make the song of his vowels rough; the +angularity, the masculinity, abruptness, and hardness of his peasant's +nature peer through everywhere. In addition to this, there is now the +inner transformation. So long as Verhaeren's poetic tendency was merely +pictorial, one that calmly and without excitement aimed at painting the +passion of the Flemish people, the earnestness of monasteries, just so +long did the Alexandrine best serve to divide the rhythmic waves of his +inspiration and roll them along. But when his personal sympathy began to +confuse the inner indifference of his first work, his verse became +uneasy. The cracks in the Alexandrine became more and more perceptible; +greater and greater in the poet grew his impatience of it and his desire +to smash it. He is no longer satisfied with the _vers ternaire_, the +verse of the Romanticists with its two cæsuras dividing the line into +three parts of perfectly equal rhythm and weight; he takes the free +Alexandrine introduced by Victor Hugo and develops it still further, +makes it still more irregular. He gives the syllables a different +quantity, a different sonority; they no longer rest, they rock to and +fro. And gradually the earnest, immovable uniformity of accentuation is +changed into a more billowing, rhythmic fluidity. But ere long this +concession too becomes too trivial for him. A temperament so impetuous +as his will endure no outward fetter whatever. For it is not repose that +this fiery singer would describe, but his own excited state--the +quivering and vibrating of his emotion, his febrile unrest. His great +manifold feeling, which is nothing else than a modulated cry, cannot +storm itself out in regular verse; it needs unquiet gestures, motion, +freedom, the _vers libre_. The fact that at this time other poets in +France were using the free verse, the fact that it was at that +time--several dispute the priority--'invented' for poets, is of no +consequence to us here. Such contemporaneous incidences never express a +chance, but always a latent necessity. Free verse was nothing else than +the inevitable reflex action of modern feeling, the poetic breaking free +of the unrest which lay in the time. Whether or not Verhaeren at that +time had models is of no importance. What has been taken over can never +become organic, only what comes from personal experience is a real gain. +And at that time it lay quite in the line of his development that by +inner necessity he was forced to break his old instrument and create +himself a new one. For the nervous unrest, the passionate agitation of +Verhaeren's later poems is unthinkable in regular verse. If verse is to +describe in its own inner passion the immense multiplicity of modern +impressions--their haste, their fire, their precipitous revulsion, their +unexpectedness, their gloomy melancholy, and the overwhelming vastness +of their dimensions--it must be strong and yet flexible, like a rapier. +Such poems must be emancipated from rules: they must stride along like a +real crowd, noisily seething; they must not walk in step, like soldiers +on the march. And if they are to be spoken, they must not be recited in +the stiff, cold, pathetically vibrating, self-conscious declamation of +the Comédie Française; they must be spoken as though to a crowd; they +must cry out, they must hail; and this-whipping up of an audience cannot +be harmonious. These poems must be spontaneous and impulsive. + +Manifold is the diversity which Verhaeren's poetry has achieved by its +deliverance from the monotony of the Alexandrine. Now and now only can +the verse reproduce the plastic side of an impression and the inward +agitation of it; not only by a pictorial description, but in a purely +external manner too; by the sound, by the music of the rhythm. The +lines, sometimes darting far beyond the margin, sometimes, like an +arrow, sharpened to a single word, have the whole key-board of feeling. +They can pace with a grave step like long black funeral processions, if +haply they would express the monotony of solitude, 'Mes jours toujours +plus lourds s'en vont roulant leur cours';[1] they can dart up like a +falcon, white and glittering, soaring to the exulting cry 'la joie,' +swift and as high as heaven over all the sad heaviness of earth. All the +voices of day and night can now be represented onomato-poetically: all +that is brusque and sudden by brevity; all that is ponderous and +grandiose by a vast sweep of fulness; an unexpected thing by sudden +harshness; haste in a feverishly accelerated movement; savagery by a +precipitous change of velocity. Every line can now express the feeling +by its rhythm alone. And one might without knowing French recognise the +poetical intention of many of these poems merely by listening to their +consonantal music, nay, often by looking at their typographical +arrangement. + +For this reason I should be tempted to call these poems with their vast +range _symphonic_ poems. They seem to have been conceived for an +orchestra. They are not, like the poetry of a past generation, chamber +music; they are not solitary violin _soli_; they are an inspired +blending of all instruments; they are graded in individual sections +which have a different _tempo_ and the pauses of the transitions. In +Verhaeren's poetry the lyric exceeds the bounds of its domain and +impinges on the dramatic and the epic. For his poem seeks not only to +describe a mood, like a purely lyrical poem, it describes at the same +time the birth of this mood. And this first part of the construction is +epic; it is descriptive; it leads up from a lowly beginning to a great +discharge of force. And, in the second place, the transitions are +dramatic, those bursts of temperament from section to section, those +precipitous falls and steep ascents which only at the end lead to a +harmonious solution. From a purely external point of view Verhaeren's +poem is more extensive, longer, of a greater range than any other +contemporary poetry; it shoots out farther beyond the limit of lyric +poetry; and, careless of the boundary-line of æsthetics, it derives +strength and nourishment from neighbouring domains. It comes nearer to +rhetoric, nearer to epic poetry, nearer to the drama, nearer to +philosophy than any other poetry of our day; it is more independent of +set rules than poetry had been hitherto. And independent of rules--or +obeying only a new inner rule--is Verhaeren's form. Now, since the page +no longer holds the fettered lines together in equal columns, the poet +can write out his wild, overflowing feelings in their own wild, boldly +curving lines. Verhaeren's poem at this time--and that which is achieved +in the years of maturity remains inalienable--has its own inner +architectonics. But it can hardly be compared to a piece of +architecture, a structure built with hands; it is rather like a +manifestation of nature. It is elementary like every feeling; it +discharges itself like a storm. First a vision moves up like a cloud; +more and more densely it compresses itself; more and more sultrily, more +and more oppressively it weighs on the feeling; higher and higher, +hotter and hotter grows the inner tension, until at last in the +lightning of the images, in the rolling of the rhythm, all the garnered +strength discharges itself rhythmically. The andante always grows to a +furioso; and only the last section shows again the clear, cleansed sky +of calm, in an intellectual synthesis of the state of chaos. This +structure of Verhaeren's poem is almost invariable. It may be seen, for +instance, in two parallel examples: in the poems 'La Foule' and 'Vers la +Mer' in the book _Les Visages de la Vie_. Both set in with an +adjuration, a vision. Here the crowd, its confusion, its strength; there +a sensitive picture of the morning sea whose transparent tones remind +one of Turner. Now the poet fires this still vision with his own +passionateness. You see the crowd moving more and more restlessly, the +waves surging more and more passionately; and ecstasy breaks out the +moment the poet surrenders himself to these things, places himself among +the crowd, sinks his feeling, his body in the sea. Then in the finale +bursts forth the great cry of identity, in the one case the yearning to +be all the crowd, in both that ecstatic gesture of the individual +yearning for infinity. The first picture, which was only sensuously +seen, grows at the end of the poem into a great ethic inspiration; from +the vision is unfolded an unconquerable moral and metaphysical need. +This form of intensification from individual feeling to universal +feeling is the basic form of Verhaeren's poem. It might be best, in +order to convey a clear idea of its form, to use a geometrical term and +say that these poems are, to a certain extent, _poems in the form of a +parabola._ While the lyric in the current sense mostly represents a +symmetrical and harmonious form, a return to itself, a circle, +Verhaeren's poem has the form of a parabola, apparently irregular but +really equally governed by a law. His poems soar in a swift sustained +flight, soar from the earth up into the clouds, from the real to the +unreal, and then from a sudden zenith fling themselves back to the +earth. The inspiration drives the feeling away from the pictorial, from +passionless contemplation to this utmost height of possibility, far away +from all sensuous perceptions high into the metaphysical, in order then, +suddenly and unexpectedly, to bring it back to the _terra firma_ of +reality. And indeed, in the music of these poems there is something as +of a darting upwards, something of the hissing and whizzing of a stone +well thrown and of its sudden falling down. In their rhythm too is this +increasing velocity, this catching of the breath and this return to the +starting-point, this bethinking itself of gravity when it returns to the +earth. + +Something may now be said as to the means with which Verhaeren attains +his vision, with which he seeks to represent the inner passionateness of +things, with which he evokes enthusiasm. Let us first of all try to +establish whether Verhaeren is what is called a master of language. +Verhaeren's command of language is not by any means unlimited. Both in +his words and in his rhymes there is constant repetition which sometimes +borders on monotony; but on the other hand there is a strangeness, a +newness, an unexpectedness of wording which is almost unexampled in +French lyric poetry. An enrichment of the language, however, does not +proceed from neologisms alone; a word may become alive by the +unexpectedness of a new application, by a transposition of the meaning, +as Rainer Maria Rilke, for instance, has often done in the German lyric. +To redeem 'die armen Worte, die im Alltag darben,'[2] and consecrate +them anew to poetry, is perhaps a higher merit than creating new words. +Now Verhaeren has above all, by the Flemish sense of language which he +inherited, imported a certain Belgian timbre into French lyric poetry. +Personally, it is true, he is almost ignorant of Flemish; nevertheless, +by the vague music familiar to him from his childhood's days, by a +certain guttural tone, he has imported a nuance which is perhaps less? +perceptible to the foreigner than to a Frenchman. At this point I should +like to call Maurice Gauchez as a witness and borrow the most salient +examples from his extraordinarily interesting monograph. Among the +neologisms for which Gauchez suggests a foreign origin he quotes the +following: les baisers rouges, les plumes majuscules, les malades +hiératiques, la statue textuelle, les automnes prismatiques, le soir +tourbillonaire, les solitudes océans, le ciel dédalien, le coeur +myriadaire de la foule, les automnes apostumes, les vents vermeils, les +navires cavalcadeurs, les gloires médusaires. And he rightly points out +how much certain of Verhaeren's verbs might enrich the French language: +enturquoiser, rauquer, vacarmer, béquiller, s'enténébrer, se futiliser, +se mesquiniser, larmer. But I for my part cannot look upon the +enrichment here accruing from racial instinct as the essential thing in +his verbal art: it only gives it a local colour, without really +explaining what is astonishingly modern in his diction. Verhaeren has +been a great creator of new things for the French lyric, above all by +his extension of its range of subjects, by his renewal of poetic +reality, by recruiting new forces for poetry in the domain of technical +science. _The great part of the new blood for his language came not so +much from Flemish as from science_. A man who writes poems on the +Exchange, on the theatre, on science, who sings factories and railway +stations, cannot ignore their terminology. He must borrow certain +technical expressions from the vocabulary of science, certain +pathological terms from medicine; he must extend the glossary of the +poetic by the extension of the poetic itself. There are geographical +surprises of rhyme to be found in Verhaeren: Berlin and Sakhalin, +Moscow, the Balearic and other distant islands whose names have never +previously lived in rhyme. And since science is by its own progress +compelled to invent new names every day, since new machines demand new +words for their necessities, here for the first time an inexhaustible +source has been discovered for replenishing the French language. + +This immense wealth, on the other hand, is jeopardised by something that +might be called not so much poverty or restriction as fascination. Every +one-sidedness of feeling produces, with its advantages, certain defects, +and thus the constant passionateness which brought Verhaeren's poetry +near to oratory, to preaching, is at the same time responsible for a +certain monotony of the metaphors. Verhaeren is hallucinated by certain +words, images, adjectives, phrases. He repeats them incessantly through +all his work. All things in which a many-headed passion is united he +compares with a 'brasier'; 'carrefour' is his symbol for indecision; +'l'essor' is for him the last straining of effort; many cries and words +by which he hails his audience are repeated almost from page to page. +The adjectives too are often monotonous; often indeed, with the cold +'iques' at the end of them, they are schematic; and even in the +metaphors that phenomenon is unmistakable which in science is called +pseudoanæsthesia, that is, the memory of a fixed feeling from the domain +of some other sense is always individually associated with a certain +colour or sound. For him 'red' expresses all that is passionate; 'gold' +all greatness and pomp; 'white' all that is gentle; 'black' all enmity. +His images have thus something abrupt and absolute; there is always in +them, as Albert Mockel has demonstrated in his masterly study, the +decisive, the sudden excitement, which overwhelms our astonishment. His +images are as violent as his colours, as his rhythm. They have the +suddenness of a cannon-ball which darts through space and is only +perceptible to our vision when it reaches its aim and smashes the +target. Possibly the inmost reason of this lies in the fact that these +poems are intended to be spoken. A placard that is to have effect at +some distance must be in glaring colours; pathos calls for images that +hallucinate. Such images have indeed been found by Verhaeren, and by +Verhaeren only. He hardly seems to know nuances. With the brutal +instinct of a strong man he loves all that is glaring, all that is +untrammelled. 'La couleur, elle est dans ses oeuvres une surprise de +métaux et d'images.'[3] But in this material they blaze, and with their +lightnings they light up even the most distant horizon. I will only +remind the reader of his 'beffrois immensément vêtus de nuit' or 'la +façade paraît pleurer des lettres d'or,' or his 'les gestes de lumière +des phares.' By the intensity of such images Verhaeren attains to quite +an incomparable clearness of the feeling. 'Personne, je crois, ne +possède à l'égal de Verhaeren le don des lumières et des ombres, non +point fondues, mais enchevêtrées, des noirs absolus coupés de blanches +clartés.'[4] + +One-sidedness of temperament here produces a one-sided advantage with +all its artistic restrictions. So that Verhaeren is not a verbal artist +in the unrestricted sense of one who always hits upon the only, the +inevitable comparison for a thing; of one who flashes a bold word on the +attention once and never retails it till it palls, who seems to use +every word for the first time. His poetic vocabulary is rich, but by no +means infinite; his sensibility is strong, but it has its restrictions. +For, as is the case with every passionate poet, certain feelings at the +last white-heat of excitement appear to him identical, seem to him to be +capable of comparison only with the quite elementary things of Nature, +with fire, the sea, the wind, thunder and lightning. To make the point +clear, Verhaeren is not a verbal artist in Goethe's sense, but rather in +Schiller's sense. With the latter, too, he has the gift in common of +definitely expressing certain perceptions in one lyric line. He has +discovered essences of the lyric feeling of life, lines that are now +household words, or which at all events will be so. It will be +sufficient to mention word formations such as 'les villes +tentaculaires,' which in France have already become common-places, or +such maxims as 'La vie est à monter et non à descendre,' or 'Toute la +vie est dans l'essor.' In lines like these the lyric ecstasy is +compressed as in a coin, and perpetuated in the current riches of the +language. + +This hardness and brutality, these abrupt transitions, constitute the +individuality of Verhaeren's poetry. At bottom it is nothing else than +an accentuated masculinity. The voice, the music, is guttural, deep, +raucous, masculine; the body of his poem has, like a man's body, the +beautiful movement of strength, but in repose gestures that are often +hard and which only in passion regain their compelling beauty. Whereas +French lyric poetry, so to speak, had imitated the female body, the +delicate grace of its soft yielding lines; whereas its first concern was +harmony; Verhaeren's poem strove only for the rhythm of movement, only +for the proud and vigorously ringing stride of a man, his leaping and +running, the fighting display of his strength. This is not the only +reason why the French have so long repudiated him. For where we delight +in an echo from the German in his language, they feel the harshness of +the Teutonic undertone; where we find a consonance with the German +ballad, a re-birth of the German ballad as though it were awakening from +the dreams of childhood, they see an opposition to the native tradition. +And in fact, the farther Verhaeren has proceeded in his development, +both in his personality and in his verse, the more the French varnish +has peeled off his Teutonic perception. It was only in the time of his +first dependence on tradition that his poetry was hardly to be +distinguished from that of other writers in French. The farther he +receded from the French standpoint, the more he unconsciously approached +German art. To-day, perhaps, a return to classicism is perceptible in +his poetry. The neologisms are not so audacious; the images are more +schematic; the whole poem is calmer and more clarified. This, however, +is by no means a cowardly compromise with a shattered tradition, no +repentant return to the fold; it is the same phenomenon we meet in a +similar manner in the late poems of Goethe, Schiller, Hugo, and +Swinburne; the effect of the cooling of the blood in age; the yielding +of sensuous perception to intellectual ideas. The victor has lost the +fighter's brutality; the man in his maturity no longer needs revolt but +a conception of the world--harmony. Here, as in Verhaeren's whole +evolution, his verse is the most delicately sensitive indicator of the +psychic revulsion, the perfect proof of a poetic and organic development +which is really inward and dependent only on the laws of his blood. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] 'L'Heure Mauvaise' (_Au Bord de la Route_). + +[2] 'Poor words a-hungered in the working day.'--Rainer Maria Rilke, +_Mir sur Feier._ + +[3] Albert Mockel, _Émile Verhaeren_. + +[4] _Ibid._ (_Ibid._). + + + + +VERHAEREN'S DRAMA + + Toute la vie est dans l'essor. + É.V., _Les Forces Tumultueuses._ + +Émile Verhaeren's dramas seem to stand outside his work. Verhaeren is +essentially a lyric poet. His whole feeling springs from lyric +enthusiasm, and all neighbouring domains are merely sources whose +strength flows into and feeds this one vital instinct. Verhaeren has +almost always used the dramatic and the epic only as a means, never as +an end in themselves: from the epic he has taken over into the vast +sweep of his dithyrambic poems its broad, calm development, and from the +drama the swift, abrupt contrast of transitions. The dramatic and the +epic only serve him as a tonic, as a means to strengthen the blood of +his lyric art. Although Verhaeren beside his lyric work has written +dramas--four up to the present--these, in the edifice of his complete +production, must be appreciated from a different point of view: from an +architectural point of view. For the dramas are to him, in a certain +sense, only a survey, a concentration of individual lyric crises, a +synopsis of certain ideal complexes which have occupied some moment of +his past; they are final settlements; the last point in lines of +development; milestones of individual epochs. All that in the lyric +poems, which never systematically bounded a domain, fell apart, is here +made to converge to the focus of a programme. The lyric juxtaposition is +fused into an inner relationship, the circle of ideas is co-ordinated +like a picture in the frame of a play. Verhaeren's four tragedies +represent four spheres of a conception of the universe: the religious, +the social, the national, and the ethical. _Le Cloître_ is a re-creation +of the book of verse _Les Moines_, is the tragedy of Catholicism; _Les +Aubes_ is a condensation of the sociological trilogy _Les Villes +Tentaculaires, Les Campagnes Hallucinées, Les Villages Illusoires. +Philip II._ shapes the tragedy of the Antichrist, the contrast of Spain +and Belgium, of sensuality and asceticism. And _Hélène de Sparte_, which +in its outward form manifests a return to classicism, handles purely +moral, eternal problems. As far as their contents are concerned, +Verhaeren's dramas show no deviation, no change of the inner centre of +gravity, and his new dramatic style is in perfect harmony with his new +lyric style. For just as on the one hand he has used the dramatic +element as a substance of his lyric work, here in his dramas he has +transmuted the lyric element to a dramatic element. Here, too, we have +nothing but visions intensified into exaltation. Here, as everywhere +else, Verhaeren can only create by enthusiasm. What goads him on is the +lyric moment in his enthusiasm, that second of the highest tension when +passion, if it is not to shatter the frame of its generator, must have +explosive words. The characters of his dramas are never anything but +symbols of great passions, the bridge for this ascension of the +exaltation. To him the action is no more than the way to the crises, to +those seconds when some mighty force seizes on these characters and +forces them to cry out. Whole scenes seem to be only awaiting for the +moment when some one shall rise and turn to the crowd, wrestle with it +and overthrow it, or be himself dashed to pieces. + +The style of Verhaeren's dramas is purely lyrical; the pace is +throughout passionate and feverish; and this method, which runs counter +to all dramatic canons, was bound organically to create a new technique. +The French drama had hitherto known only the rhymed Alexandrine or +prose. In Verhaeren's dramas--for the first time to my knowledge--prose +and verse (verse which is 'free' both as regards rhythm and rhyme) are +throughout promiscuously mixed. Mixed, but not as in Shakespeare, in +whose plays verse and prose alternate in individual scenes and +establish, so to speak, a social stratification, serving-men speaking in +prose and their masters in verse: in Verhaeren the prose passages are +the broad, resting foundations of the action; the curved bowls, so to +speak, from which the holy fire of the exaltation flames. His +characters express their calm in prose, pass from calm to excitement, +and in this intensification speak a language which imperceptibly merges +into a poem. Not till their passion breaks out do they speak in verse, +in those seconds, as it were, when their soul begins to vibrate; and in +these passages one cannot help thinking of an aeroplane which is first +driven along the ground and moves with ever greater speed till suddenly +it soars aloft. In Verhaeren's drama the characters speak an ever purer +language the more poetical they become; music breaks with their passion +from their souls; just as many people who behave coarsely and awkwardly +in ordinary life, in great moments suddenly achieve a bearing of heroic +beauty. This embodies the idea that in enthusiasm a man discovers in +himself another and a purer language; that passion and the yearning to +free oneself from an immeasurable and intolerable earthly burden make a +poet of any man. This idea is in harmony with Verhaeren's whole +conception of the universe, his idea that the man swept away by passion +and enthusiasm is on a higher plane than the critic with his lack of hot +feeling; that receptivity for great sensations constitutes, so to speak, +a scale of moral values. And the stage performances have shown that this +new style is justified, that the transition from prose to verse, +occurring as it does contemporaneously with the ascension from calm to +passion, passes practically unnoticed by the audience, which is +equivalent to saying that when put to the test the method was recognised +as necessary. + +And it is by passion, this innermost flame of Verhaeren's poetry, that +his dramas live too. Their qualities are those of the lyrics; they have, +above all, that vast power of vision which sets _Philip II_. against the +tragic landscape of Spain; over the drama of Helen arches the heaven of +Greece, blue, and mild, and open like a flower; and behind the tragedy +of modern cities unrolls the inflamed scenery of the sky with the black +arms of chimneys. And then the immense fervour of the ecstasy which, not +in a slow, regular progression, but in savage, convulsive thrusts, +whirls the action onward to the moments of the solution. + +Thus Verhaeren's first drama derives its strength from the lyric source +of a man's accusation of himself. _Le Cloître_ is a paraphrase of _Les +Moines_, the book of the monks. Here again all the characters are +gathered together in the cool corridors of a monastery--the gentle, the +wild, the feudal, the wrathful, the childlike, the learned monk; here, +however, they do not act in isolation, but with all their strength the +one against the other. They fight for the prior's chair, which is really +the symbol of something higher. For just as in _Les Moines_ every +individual monk expressed symbolically some virtue of Catholicism and a +distinct idea of God, here the prior's chair decides the question who is +the most deserving of God. For his successor the old prior has +designated Balthasar, a nobleman whom the monastery has sheltered for +years. But he had only taken refuge there because he had killed his own +father, thus escaping secular justice, and now he feels the +consciousness of his guilt burning, feels the exasperated struggle +between his own conscience and the lighter conscience of the others, who +have long since forgiven him. And he cannot feel himself free before he +has made his confession before the assembled monks, and even then only +when he has repeated the confession, against the will of the monastery, +to the people, and surrendered himself to the secular judges. The Roman +Catholic idea of confession is here wonderfully in agreement with +Dostoieffsky's conception of salvation by confession, of deliverance by +suffering self-imposed. In three climaxes of equal force at the end of +each of the three acts the tragic confession bursts into flame--first +born of fear, then of a sense of justice, and at the last positively +conceived as a pleasure; and here in these superb lyric ecstasies rest +the strong pinions which bear the tragedy. + +In the second, the social tragedy _Les Aubes,_ the scenario is the +present time. It has the purple scenery of _Les Villes Tentaculaires_, +of the cities with the arms of polypi, which drain the blood of the poor +dying country. Beggars, paupers, those who are starving, those who have +been evicted, march to Oppidomagnum, the modern industrial city, and +besiege it. It is the past once again storming the future. In the +lyrical trilogy this struggle had been shaped in a hundred visionary +instances; here, however, the bright sky of reconciliation is arched +above the battle-field, over the realities hovers the dream. For here +the future joins hands with the present. The great tribune, Hérénien, +breaks the backbone of this battle and shows himself the hero of a new +morality by secretly admitting the enemy into the city--in the old sense +the action of a traitor--by yielding and thus transforming the struggle +into a reconciliation. He is the tragic bearer of the moral idea that +enmity may be overcome by goodness, and he falls as the first martyr of +his faith. Verhaeren's social conception, his superb description of +realities, here merge slowly in a Utopia; the dawns of the new days +begin to shine above the pasts that are dead; the din of rebellion fades +away in harmony. This drama, like the others, is far remote from the +possibilities of the majority of theatres, because of the fact that here +too an ethical idea is expressed with all the glow and ecstasy which as +a rule in modern dramas is only found in the utterance of erotic desire. + +The third tragedy, _Philip II_., is a national drama, although its scene +is not laid in Flanders. Much as Charles de Coster in his _Thyl +Ulenspiegel_ had, with a Fleming's deadly hatred, seen in Philip II. the +hereditary enemy of liberty, Verhaeren, who with the lyric poetry of +his _Toute la Flandre_ became the representative singer of his native +land, painted this gloomy figure with hatred. Philip II. is here, as in +_Thyl Ulenspiegel,_ the hard, inflexible king who would fain put life +out because it burns too red for him, who wishes to have the world as +cool and marble-like as the chambers of the Escorial. Here of a sudden +the reverse side of Roman Catholicism, whose passion was immortalised in +_Le Cloître_, is rent open; its pitilessness and asceticism; its +obstinate effort to overthrow the irrefragable joy of life. Don Carlos, +however, is the fervent friend of the people, the friend of Flanders; he +is the will to enjoyment, to merry moods, to passion. And this struggle +between the 'yes' and the 'no' of life, this fight of Verhaeren's own +lyric crisis, this fight between the denial and the passionate approval +of enjoyment--at bottom, toe, the deepest cause of the war between Spain +and the Netherlands--is here symbolised in characters. Of course, any +comparison with Schiller's _Don Carlos_ must tell against Verhaeren, for +the German drama is far more dramatic and conceived on a scale of +greater magnificence; but Verhaeren did not aim at a complete rounding +off, at a plenitude of characters; all that he wanted was to show these +two feelings in their struggle with each other, the enthusiasm of life +and its suppression by force. A comparison with Schiller's drama best +shows Verhaeren's disregard of dramatic canons, and at the same time +the immense new lyric power of the play. For Spain is here seen with a +strength and intensity of vision which is probably without a parallel in +tragedy. The cold, hypocritical atmosphere can be felt; and better than +from words the character of Philip can be perceived in that one silent +scene in which he suddenly appears stealthily creeping to watch his son +in the arms of the countess, and then, without a gleam in his rigid +eyes, without the slightest movement of anger, vanishes again into the +dark. Behind him, however, behind the spy and the eavesdropper, glides +another shadow, the monk of the Inquisition: the eavesdropper is himself +shadowed, the ruler is himself ruled. Visions like these, with the +ecstasy of certain scenes, are the strongest motive power in Verhaeren's +poetic construction. His dramatic art, like the art of his lyrics, does +not rise in a steady ascent, but in sudden wild leaps and starts. + +Only in his last drama, _Hélène de Sparte_, has Verhaeren come nearer to +the accepted conception of the dramatic. That is characteristic of his +organic development. For now that he is in the years when passion of +necessity cools, harmony grows dear to him; and he who through all the +years of his youth and prime was a revolutionary, now recognises the +necessity of inner laws. By its mere intellectual substance this tragedy +expresses the veering round: it is nothing else than the longing from +passion to harmony, Helen's flight from adventures to repose. And the +return is to be found again in the verse, for Verhaeren here for the +first time takes up the traditional French metre; his form, though yet +free, approaches the Alexandrine. The tragedy of Helen is the tragedy of +beauty. Helen is one of those antique characters who in Greek literature +were only sketched in fleeting lines, characters whom a modern poet is +now entitled to fill in with his own fate. For from the Greek sources we +really knew nothing about her personal fate; we only knew the effect she +exercised, only the reflection of her personality on others, not that of +others on her. She was the queen who inflamed all men; who was the cause +of great wars; the woman for whose sake murder on murder was committed; +who was snatched from one bed to another; for love of whom Achilles +arose from the dead; who passed her life circled by disastrous passion. +But whether she herself shared these passions, whether she grew by them +or suffered by them, the poets tell us nothing. Verhaeren in his drama +has now attempted to depict the tragedy of the woman who endures fearful +suffering because she is always desired in lust and no more; who is +consumed by the torture of being ever robbed from lover by lover; of +never knowing the look of pure eyes, calm converse, quiet breathing; who +is cursed always to stand at the pyre of passion, with the flames of +men always blazing round her. Whoever looks at her at once desires her, +snatches her; none waits and asks whether he serves her will; she is +robbed like a chattel; she glides from hand to hand. In Verhaeren's +drama Helen has returned home, a woman tired, tired of all unrest, of +all her triumphs, tired of love; a woman hating her own beauty because +it creates unrest, longing for nothing but old age, when none shall +desire her more and her days shall be calm. Menelaus has brought her +home, rescued her from all that stifling steam of criminal passion; now +she would breathe quietly, live calm days, and be faithful to him. She +desires no more than this. No passion can tempt her more. 'I have seen +the flaring of so many flames that now I love only the hearth's glow and +the lamp' is the expression of her poignant resignation. But fate will +not yet let her go. Verhaeren has here seized on the great idea of the +Greeks that everything that is superhuman on earth, every excessive +gift, even that of beauty, is pursued as a hybrid by the envy of the +gods, and must be paid for with pain. Too great beauty is no profit, but +a tragic gift. And hardly has Helen returned, to rest and be happy, to +be like everybody else, than new clouds roll themselves up above her +head. Her own brother desires her; her enemy Electra desires her; her +husband is murdered for her sake; and the old fearful battle threatens +to break out anew for the possession of her body. Now she flees, away +from men, out into nature. And here again, with the vision of genius, +Verhaeren approaches Greek feeling. The forest is not dead to him, but +animate; life does not stop at human beings; fauns emerge from the +bushes, naiads from the rivers, bacchantes from the mountains, and all +swarm round Helen in her despair, luring her to their lust, till she +flees to Zeus in death. + +It is characteristic of Verhaeren that he has made even this tragedy, +the tragedy of Helen, anerotic, or better anti-erotic. Perhaps the +slight interest which has hitherto been manifested in Verhaeren's +dramas, and indeed partly in his whole work, may be ascribed to the fact +that, in comparison with the other poets of his day, he has held himself +aloof from erotic subjects, that the problem of love has only recently, +in the years of his maturity, begun to interest him as a theme for his +art. From the first Verhaeren concentrated all the passion which others +lavished on the erotic in purely intellectual things, in enthusiasm, in +admiration. In his dramas woman plays an almost subordinate rôle, and +_Le Cloître_ is perhaps the only important drama of our days which does +not show a single woman among its characters and in its inner circle of +problems. By this fact alone his dramatic aim strays too far from the +interests of our public. For it is from a purely intellectual conflict +that Verhaeren seeks to disengage that height and heat of passion which +hitherto was known only in erotic themes; and therefore the exaltation +strikes the majority of an audience as strange, and leaves them unmoved. +All our contemporaries who seek art only in the theatre are too +indifferent and timid to be snatched up, for a purely ethical problem, +into an ecstasy so burning, so persistently lit with convulsive +lightnings. This is the only explanation I can find for the opposition +to Verhaeren's dramas, which are so full of beauty and of living, +dramatic, passionate situations, and which, above all, contain something +new, a new dramatic style. This very kindling of prose to verse was a +revelation. But the whole dramatic aim is different in Verhaeren to that +which obtains on the stage of to-day. His aim is not to excite interest, +not to produce fear and compassion, but enthusiasm. He does not wish to +occupy the minds of his audience, but to carry them away into his +rhythm. He wishes to make them drunk with his great excitement, because +only he who gazes in enthusiasm is capable of recognising these supreme +passions; he wishes to make the spectators as feverish as the characters +they see before them on the stage; he wishes to make their blood fiery; +wishes to raise them above all cool, calm, and critical contemplation. +His whole temperament, which drives along in the direction of +superabundance; his art, which only fulfils its purpose in ecstasy; +require impassioned actors and an impassioned audience. To create the +ideal atmosphere which Verhaeren demands for his dramas would require an +actor of kindred genius who should have no fear of being called +emotional, and who would hurl the verses down like cataracts, +emphasising like a demagogue and at the same time unfolding all the +magnificence of the rhythm. For the poet asks for nothing save a feeling +of enthusiasm corresponding to that which first created the poem in him. +His intention is not to convince by logic, not to dazzle by pictures, +but to whip up and carry along with him into that ultimate dizzy feeling +which to him is alone identical with the highest form of the feeling of +life--into passion. + +In Germany _Le Cloître_,[1] as staged by Max Reinhardt, and again in the +Deutsches Volkstheater in Vienna, has conquered the interest of a +literary public and triumphed unreservedly over the obstacle of its own +strangeness. There has been an exemplary production of _Philip II._ in +the Munich Künstlertheater; _Hélène de Sparte_ on the other hand has not +yet found the setting it demands. As bodied forth in Paris by Ida +Rubinstein, with decorations of a grandiose barbarism by Bakst, with a +ground-colouring of music, it was effective more by the external +magnificence of this somewhat sensationally advertised _mise en scène_ +than by its poetic qualities, smothered as they were by the +accessories. A production which shall do justice to the play, leaving +its pure lyric line unbedizened with glaring arabesques, is still +waiting as a task for some actor-manager of genius who possesses that +highest and rarest quality of being able to subordinate himself to the +utterance, who is anxious not to ruin a noble simplicity by a spurious +plenitude. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] A version of _Le Cloître_, by Mr. Osman Edwards, was successfully +produced by Miss Horniman at the Gaiety Theatre in Manchester in 1910. + + + + + +PART III + +COMPLETING FORCES + + +LES VISAGES DE LA VIE--LES FORCES TUMULTUEUSES--LA MULTIPLE +SPLENDEUR--TOUTE LA FLANDRE--LES HEURES CLAIRES--LES HEURES +D'APRÈS-MIDI--LES HEURES DU SOIR--LES RYTHMES SOUVERAINS +--LES BLÉS MOUVANTS + +1900-1914 + + + + +COSMIC POETRY + + ... Les vols + Vers la beauté toujours plus claire et plus certaine. + É.V., 'Les Spectacles.' + +The poetic conquest of life represents, as it were, a process of +combustion. Every poet feeds the flame of his inner being, his artistic +passion, with the things of the world around him, transmutes them into +flame, and himself shoots on high and dies down with them. The more the +flame cools with the feebler circulation of the blood, the weaker grows +this fire, and gradually the pure crystals, the residue from this battle +of the inner flame with the things of reality, are separated from this +process of combustion. Verhaeren's work was in his youth and prime a +flame exceedingly hot, lawless, free, and flaring like the very years of +his youth and prime. Now, however, in the work of his fifties, now that +passion has cooled, the yearning is revealed to find the goal of this +passion, the inherent lawfulness of this unrest. Enthusiasm for the +present, poetic consumption of the world in visions without the residue +of philosophy and logical knowledge, no longer suffice him. For all +deeper contemplation of the present is unthinkable without an exceeding +of its limits: all that is, is at the same time something that has been +and something that will be. Nothing is so entirely the present that it +is not intimately connected with the past and the future. The eternal +and the permanent is the inward side of all phenomena. And the more the +poet turns his visions from the exterior, from the pictorial, to the +inner world, to psychology, the more he descends from external phenomena +to the roots of forces, the more he must apprehend the permanent behind +the transitoriness of things. No perception of a contemporary state is +fertile unless it is impregnated with the perception of laws that are +independent of time, unless the changing phenomena are recognised as +transformations of the unchangeable primordial phenomenon. This +transition from maturity to age, from contemplation to knowledge, +corresponds to a new artistic transition in the incomparably organic +development of this poet. A transition: no longer a re-formation, but a +formation which moves both forwards and backwards, which is at the same +time an evolution and a retrogression, just as the poetic form of +Verhaeren's poetry no longer undergoes a transformation, but is +petrified. What a man has acquired in the years of his prime is an +inalienable possession; its value can be further increased only by +knowledge, by the appraising of the possession. It may be said that a +man who has passed his prime experiences nothing new: the static +equilibrium is realised; what has been experienced is only the better +understood. The experience is no longer a struggle, no longer a state of +unrest, something that slips away; it is a possession. What passion has +fought for and won with a leap is now set in order and appraised at its +true value, by calm. This transition from youth to age is in Verhaeren, +to use Nietzsche's phrase, a transition from the Dionysiac to the +Apollinarian, from a plethora to harmony. His yearning is now _vivre +ardent et clair_, to live passionately, but at the same time clearly to +preserve his inner fire, but at the same time to lose his unrest. +Verhaeren's books in these years grow more and more crystalline; the +fire in them no longer blazes openly like a flaring pyre, but glitters +and sparkles as with the thousand facets of a precious stone. The smoke +and the unrest of the fire die down, and now the pure residues are +clarified. Visions have become ideas, the wrestling earthly energies are +now eternal immutable laws. + +The will of these last years, of these last works, is the will to +realise a cosmic poem. In the trilogy of the cities Verhaeren had laid +hold on the universe as it lies around us to-day; he had snatched it to +him and overcome it. In passionate visions he had shaped its image, +achieved its form, and now it stood beside the actual world as his own. +But a poet who would create the whole world for himself, the whole +infinite vista of its possibilities by the side of its actualities, must +give it everything: not only its form, not only its face, but its soul +as well, its organism, its origin, and its evolution. He must not merely +apprehend its pictorial aspect and its mechanical energy, he must give +it an encyclopædic form. He must create a mythology for it, a new +morality, a new history, a new system of dynamics, a new system of +ethics. Above it or in it he must place a God who acts and transforms. +He must fashion it in his poetry not only as something that is, not only +as something in the present, but as something that has been and is +becoming, something that is part and parcel of the past and of the +future too. It must ring out the old and ring in the new. And this will +to create a cosmic poem is to be found in Verhaeren's new and most +precious books--_Les Visages de la Vie, Les Forces Tumultueuses, La +Multiple Splendeur, Les Rythmes Souverains_---books which by their mere +title announce the effort to include the dome of heaven in their vast +embrace. They are the pillars of a mighty structure, the great stanzas +of the cosmic poem. They are no longer a conversation of the poet with +himself and contemporary feeling; they are a pronouncement addressed to +all the ages. _S'élancer vers l'avenir_ is the longing they express: a +turning away from all the pasts to speak to the future. The lyric +element in them steps beyond the boundary-line of poetry. It kindles the +neighbouring domains of philosophy and religion, kindles them to new +possibilities. For not only æsthetically would Verhaeren come to an +understanding with realities; not by poetry only would he overcome the +new possibilities; he would fain master them morally and religiously as +well. The task of these last and most important books of verse is no +longer to apprehend the universe in individual phenomena, but to impress +its new form on a new law. In _Les Visages de la Vie_ Verhaeren has in +individual poems glorified the eternal forces, gentleness, joy, +strength, activity, enthusiasm; in _Les Forces Tumultueuses_ the +mysterious dynamics of union shining through all forms of the real; in +_La Multiple Splendeur_ the ethics of admiration, the joyous +relationship of man with things and with himself; and in _Les Rythmes +Souverains_ he has celebrated the most illustrious heroes of his ideals. +For life has long since ceased to be for him mere gazing and +contemplation: + + Car vivre, c'est prendre et donner avec liesse + ...................avide et haletant + Devant la vie intense et sa rouge sagesse![1] + +Description, poetic analysis, has gradually grown into a hymn, into +'laudi del cielo, del mare, del mondo,' into songs of the whole world +and of the ego, and of the harmony of the world's beauty in its union +with the ego. The lyrical has here become cosmic feeling, knowledge has +become ecstasy. Over and above the knowledge that there cannot be +anything isolated, that everything is arranged and obeys the last +uniform law of the universe, over and above this knowledge rises +something still higher--over the contemplation of the world rises faith +in the feeling of the world. The glorious optimism of these works ends +in the religious confidence that all contrasts will be harmonised; that +man will more and more be conscious of the earth; that every individual +must discover his own law of the world in himself, the law that makes it +possible for him to apprehend everything lyrically, with enthusiasm, +with joy. + +Here Verhaeren's poetry far exceeds the boundary-line of literature; it +becomes philosophy and it becomes religion. Verhaeren was from the very +first an eminently religious man. In his childhood Catholicism was the +deepest feeling of his life, but this Catholicism had perished in the +crises of his adolescence, his religious feeling had given way to the +rapt contemplation of all new things, to ecstasy inspired by the aspect +of life. But now, when Verhaeren returns to the metaphysical, the old +yearning is reawakened. The old gods are dead for him; Pan is dead, and +Christ too. Now he feels the need of finding a new faith, a new +certainty, a new God for the new sensation, this identity of I and +world. The new conflicts have created a longing in him for a new +equilibrium; his stormily religious feeling, determined to believe, +needs new cognition. The image of the world would be incomplete without +the God who rules it. All his yearning goes out to this God, and it +finds its fulfilment. And this knowledge gives him the highest joy life +can have, the loftiest pride life can bestow: + + Voici l'heure qui bout de sang et de jeunesse. + * * * * * + Un vaste espoir, venu de l'inconnu, déplace + L'équilibre ancien dont les âmes sont lasses; + La nature paraît sculpter + Un visage nouveau à son éternité.[2] + +To chisel this new face of God is the aim of his last and most mature +works, in which the obstinate 'no' of his youth has become the loud +exulting 'yes' of life, in which the great possibilities of old have +become an unsuspected opulent reality. + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] 'Un Soir' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[2] 'La Foule' (_Les Visages de la Vie_). + + + + +THE LYRIC UNIVERSE + + Il faut aimer, pour découvrir avec génie. + É.V., 'Un Soir.' + + +If one is to understand Verhaeren's lyric work as a work of art, it must +be kept in mind that he is a lyric poet, and a lyric poet only. A lyric +poet only, not, however, in the limited sense of one who confines +himself to the writing of lyric poems, but of one who, in a lofty and +more extensive meaning of the term, transforms everything into emotion, +who stands in a lyric relationship with all things, with the whole +world. And since the innermost constitution of a man's talent +unconsciously acts as the driving tendency, the direction of the aim of +his life, his very fate and his conception of the world, since all this +is so, the lyric poet that Verhaeren is must of necessity have a lyrical +conception of the world, his cosmic feeling _must_ be lyrical. To say +that he has confined himself to the lyric style would be to diminish his +stature. It is true that in all Verhaeren's imaginative work--and it is +of considerable volume--there is no prose. A very thin volume of short +stories did indeed appear many years ago and has long been out of print; +but how tentative and provisional it was in scope may be seen from the +fact that Verhaeren later on turned one of the stories, that of the +bell-ringer in the burning tower, into a poem. And I might mention a +whole series of poems which at bottom are nothing but short stories, and +others again which are saturated with dramatic excitement, quite +unlyrical problems, but all of them lyrically conceived. And even in his +criticism of art and in that penetrating and beautiful book of his on +Rembrandt, in which he represents the organic connection of the artist +with his native province almost as a personal experience, the +outstanding passages live by their lyric enthusiasm. Many of the poems +again are spiritualised theories of art. The origin of language or the +sociological problem of emigration, the economic contrast of agrarianism +and industrialism: in an essay such things might be calmly treated, +coldly passed in review. But this is characteristic of Verhaeren, that +he is unable to take a cold, faint interest in anything: consciously or +unconsciously he must be carried away by enthusiasm for the things he +contemplates. The ecstasy of his excitement involuntarily whips him out +of a slow trot into lyric fervour. Poetry is to him, like his +philosophy, like his ethics, a lyrical soaring. It is characteristic of +the great lyric poets, of Walt Whitman, Dehmel, Carducci, Rilke, Stefan +George, that at a certain height of their artistry they renounce all +other than lyric forms. Here, as elsewhere, great things only seem +possible of attainment by concentration, only by the poet's freeing +himself from the trammels of all other experiments. Great lyric poetry +as the art of a life only accrues from the renunciation of all other +forms of poetry. + +Infinite enthusiasm, _le lyrisme universel_, a rapt visionary sensation +of the earth rolling as it were in an eternal vibration through the +cosmos, is the aim of Verhaeren's work. Not to describe the world in +isolated poems, not to break it up in impressions, but to feel it as +itself a flaring, flaming poem, _not to be one who contemplates the +world, but one who feels it_, this is his highest yearning. A lyric art +can only grow to such intentions as these from emotions not felt by +other lyrists. It is not, as with most poets, from gentle crepuscular +feelings, from vague states of melancholy, that such an impulse is +crystallised to lyrical expression; here it is an overflowing fulness of +feeling, a bright joy in life, that engenders his poem; an explosion +which in the days of his debility was a paroxysm, which as time went on +changed to a pure enthusiasm, but which was always an eruption of +strength. Lyric art is here a discharge of the whole feeling of life. +With Verhaeren the excitement does not sting the individual nerve; it +spreads electrically, inflames the blood, contracts the muscles, +produces an immense pressure, and then discharges the whole energy of a +body saturated with health and strength. _The will to discharge strength +is the basic form of Verhaeren's lyric emotion_. His aim is to instil +inspiration--first of all into himself (since inspiration always +represents a higher state of ecstasy), and then into others. His lyric +art is above all a launching of himself into exaltation, 'le pouvoir +magique de s'hypnotiser soi-même.'[1] He talks himself into passion, +gives himself that impulsion which then bears others along with him. It +is not a lack, a privation, not a complaint or a wish that his work +expresses; it is a plethora, a superfluity of riches, a pressure. It is +not a warding off of life but an eternal leaping at it. His poetry has +not the modest longing of music to lure to reveries; it does not, like +painting, seek to represent something: it would act like fiery wine; it +would make all feelings strong and glowing, sink all hindrances, produce +that sensation of lightness, of blessedness, that quivering intoxication +which conquers all the heaviness of earth. His intention is to produce +this state of drunkenness, 'non seulement la glorification de la nature +mais la glorification même d'une vision intérieure.' And his attitude is +not plaintive or defensive, it is the great spirited attitude of a hand +raised and pointing out, 'regardez!' the adjuring attitude, 'dites!' or +one that fires and animates, 'en avant!' but it is always a gesture from +the poet's self towards something, always a swinging of his arms away +from himself into the universe, always a pressing forward, a snatching +away of himself from matter. And any one who really feels these poems +feels, when the last line is read, that his blood is beating faster, +feels that his body calls for exercise, feels the inspiration impelling +him to action. _And this is the highest intention of Verhaeren's lyrical +poetry, to animate, to quicken the blood, to fire the heart, to +intensify vitality, to increase tenfold the sensation of life_. + +But not only in this basic emotion is Verhaeren sundered from all those +other poets who fashion their verses from sadness, sickly longing, +amorousness, and melancholy. Verhaeren's lyric poetry breathes in other +realms, in another atmosphere. Verhaeren is what I should like to call a +poet of the daylight, of the open air. If you peruse the lyric works of +contemporary poets you will find that their moods mostly arise from +states of dusk and darkness. Since they have only the power of +reproducing blurred outlines, they are fond of landscapes softened by +twilight; of night, when there is no hardness in things, when what they +see meets them half-way, already shaping itself into verse. Like +Tristan, they hate the day as the destroyer of poetry, and swathe +themselves in the trembling chiaroscuro of twilight. But the really +great lyric poets have always been poets of the daylight; poets of the +day and of the light, as the Greeks were, to whom all things that were +bathed in sun spoke of beauty and cheerfulness; poets of the day, as +Walt Whitman was, the American; as all strong men have been who were +filled with the zest of life. In Germany we have Dehmel to love, one of +the few who have the courage to look right into the shining face of +things without the fear of being blinded. But Verhaeren loves things the +more the more intensive and decided they are, the more dazzling they +are, the more their glaring colours clash. He does not surprise things +when they are asleep, when they are resting and are helpless and at the +mercy of poetry; he pounces on them when they are wideawake and can +defend themselves with all their hardness from the attacks of their +lyric lover. He loves the day, which places things side by side in harsh +contrast; he loves the light, because it stimulates the blood; the rain +that lashes the body; the wind that whips the skin; cold, noise, he +loves everything that really and vehemently forces in upon him, +everything that forces him to fight. He loves hard things more than soft +and rounded things; loves that characteristic, black, and gloomy city +Toledo more than golden, dreamy Florence; he loves the wind and the +weather of frowning, tragic landscapes; he even loves noisy and +thunderous cities pregnant with smoke and choking air. His nerves are +not so morbidly sensitive that they respond to the least suggestion, the +feeblest touch, and then stand impotent, fainting, when they are faced +by the impetuous stimulants of robust life; his nerves are--not dull, +but healthy. They respond strongly to whatever lays hold of them +strongly. If the other poets are like supersensitive beings who are +excited by every trifle and lose their self-control when really great +demands are made upon them, Verhaeren is like one who is hard to +irritate, but who, if he is really stung, strikes out with his fists. +_And Verhaeren does not love the poetical things that come to meet one +already clothed in beauty; he loves those that have first to be wrestled +with and overcome. Herein lies the exceeding masculinity of his art_. No +one could ever surmise, in reading a poem of Verhaeren's, that it was +the work of a woman. And as a matter of fact Verhaeren has not yet found +an audience among women. For he is not one who moans and begs for pity; +he is no passive poet, but a fighter, one who wrestles with all strong, +wild, and living things until they yield up to him their innermost +beauty. + +And this struggle for the lyric mastery of individual sensations +gradually becomes a struggle for all things, for the whole world. For +Verhaeren does not wish to conceive of anything as unlyrical; does not +wish to blow lyric fragments off the immense mass of reality; he wishes +to sculpture it into a new shape; wishes to chisel the whole world into +a lyric. And this is the secret of his lyric work; _this_ is his work, +his task. Of a sudden we feel the distance between him and the majority +of lyric poets. _They_ have the feelings of people who receive gifts; +they regard the sensations which come fluttering towards them as so many +gay butterflies, capture them, and pin them down. Verhaeren, however, is +the fighter, the worker, who is constrained to conquer everything, to +shape the whole world anew, to rebuild it nearer to his heart's +enthusiasm. He is the lyric poet pictured by Carducci in an imperishable +poem--not the idler gazing into empty space; not the gardener decking +the paths that his lady's feet must tread, and gathering frail violets +for her bosom. + + Il poeta è un grande artiere, + Che al mestiere + Fece i muscoli d'acciaio, + Capo ha fier, collo robusto, + Nudo il busto, + Duro il braccio, e l'occhio gaio. + +And that 'picchia, picchia,' that rhythm of Carducci's, that beat of the +bronze hammer of toil, rings in the measure of his verses. All his poems +have been toiled for, fought for; they are a trophy, a meed of victory; +nothing is a lucky gift. Verhaeren's manuscripts look like a +battlefield. For he is not a poet who, in Goethe's sense, composes poems +for particular occasions; he is never overpowered by a sudden chance +idea: he transforms a problem of life, an actuality, or an intellectual +phase into a lyric mood. After he has molten the poetic idea in his +passion to a white heat, he hammers it into a poem by his rhythm. His +works are complexes: individual ideas attract him; he sets a hedge round +their poetical field, ploughs it, scatters the seed in it, and never +returns to the scene. What he has once achieved has no longer any +attraction for him. To him poetry is always a fight, always work, always +a plan. The layman who would fain look upon a lyric poem as a gift +fallen from heaven will perhaps have no liking for this conscious +method; an artist, on the other hand, will recognise in it the strength +of a wise restraint, concentration on one aim, the will to compose not a +lyric poem but a lyric work. A poetic work like that of Verhaeren, the +work of a life, is not created by chance feeling alone, and not by +enthusiasm. Such a work of art has, like a drama, its intellectual laws, +the conquering and distributing powers of the intelligence, instinct, +and above all that unifying will which suffers no dead points, no gaps, +no stains in the work. And it is from such a vast lyric will that this +work has arisen. Verhaeren is no favoured child of fortune, dowered with +art in his cradle; his blood is heavy, Teutonic blood; and, fortunately, +that ease and suppleness of the artisan which in all departments of +labour produces a ready mediocrity was as much wanting in him as all +physical skill. Verhaeren's poetic work, his form, his rhythm, his idea, +his philosophy, his architectonics, all this is something he has +acquired by labour, something he has painfully produced by passion and +an obstinate will; but for that very reason it is something organic. +For Verhaeren is one of those who learn slowly, persistently, and +surely, only from their own experience and never from others, but who +never forget and lose what they have once acquired; one of those who +grow as the things of Nature do, as trees grow into their strength ring +by ring, and rise year by year higher above the earth to gaze farther +and farther out beyond the horizons and nearer and nearer into the +heavens. + +And just for this reason, because this evolution was so persistent, +because it was so wholly based upon experience, is the ascending line in +his work so harmonious and so organic. No other lyric work of our days +is so much a symbol of the seasons, so much a mirror of human +periodicity. The revolt of spring, the sultriness of summer, the +fruitage of autumn, and the cool clearness of winter gently merge in it, +the one into the other. In his first books, at an age when many +precocious poets have finished their development, he was still wrestling +for his new form, for his expression. Nor did he at that time soon +arrive at the heart of things; he remained for a long time absorbed in +the purely picturesque contemplation of their external aspects. Then he +attempted experiments, and freed himself in revolution. But in his +beginnings he was always a student, an experimenter. In his second +period, having really penetrated below the surface, he found his own +form, like every master, and subdued the internal with the external. But +now that material is conquered, he that was a student and is now a +master will of necessity be a teacher, and feel impelled to deduce +forces from phenomena, laws from forces, the eternal from the earthly. +From vacant contemplation he had risen to passionate creation, to active +creation of art. The supreme creation of art has ever been the +converting of the unconscious into consciousness, the recognition and +knowledge of the laws of art; from the real the path proceeds to that +which transcends reality, to faith and to religion. Like every really +organic poet, Verhaeren has had to repeat the ascent of universal +history in his own evolution. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Albert Mockel, _Emile Verhaeren_. + + + + +SYNTHESES + + Réunir notre esprit et le monde + Dans les deux mains d'une très simple loi profonde. + É.V., 'L'Attente.' + + +After the great visions of the cities, after the wonderful +interpretations of democracy, there was a moment of appeasement in +Verhaeren's work--a lyrical intermezzo of little books: an almanac of +the months unfolding in short poems, the cosy happiness of wedded love +enshrined in grateful song, the legends of Flanders told in richly +coloured pictures, and then, in the great pentalogy _Toute la Flandre_, +the cities, coasts, heroes, and great men of his native province +compressed in one single picture. But after that Verhaeren takes up once +again his old path across the earth; passes again through the roaring +cities, the pregnant fields; wanders along the sea-shore; once again +through the landscapes of _Les Flamandes_ and _Les Moines_, of _Les +Villes Tentaculaires_ and _Les Campagnes Hallucinées_. It is now the +return of the spiral in Goethe's sense of evolution; the return to the +same point, but on a higher level, with a loftier outlook, in a narrower +circle, and for that reason nearer to the last, the highest point. Once +again Verhaeren surveys the modern world: now, however, with different +eyes, which no longer remain resting on the aspect of the world, but +press farther to the cause of all. What he had formerly seen sensuously, +the things whose values he had æsthetically estimated and transmuted, he +now looks at from the intellectual side, that he may estimate their +value morally. He no longer sees each thing separately, no longer adds +picture to picture, vision to vision, like a game of coloured cards: he +now unites them in one living chain. He no longer searches through +individual and detached phenomena; he now sees them together against the +background of his lofty intention to weld them into one single picture. +Now he composes, not individual poems, but fragments of his world-poem. +For, from the time that Verhaeren began to look at things with conscious +enthusiasm, they assumed different forms. The straining of his epoch no +longer seems to him to be a solitary manifestation of energy, but only a +Protean form of the eternal discharge of vigour; the will to life no +longer seems to him to be the deed of individual men, but the vitalised +primitive will of all humanity. And so, just as of old he attempted in +his vision a synthesis of energies, he now sees laws flowing into one +supreme and highest thing, into a cosmic law. + +Lyric exaltation now arches the dream of its laws over reality. But it +is no longer the mere dream of a youth in expectancy of life--the +anæmic, vague, dark, restless dream--but a man's longing to get behind +life and follow it to its earthly limit. It is a Utopia enhancing +realities beyond themselves; it is the dream of Godhead in things. In +the whole world Verhaeren sees a cosmic effort. 'Le monde est trépidant +de trains et de navires.'[1] The whole world is excited with human +activity and effort; manifestations of the feeling of life flame +everywhere; everywhere humanity is fighting for something invisible and +perhaps unattainable. But whereas of old the poet estimated the value of +every separate energy, now he comprehends all energies as one uniform +manifestation, recognises behind the unconscious activity of the +individual the sway of something greater--the bourne of all humanity. +All who work in the material of the temporal only symbolise eternal +forces--intoxication, energy, conquest, joy, error, expectation, Utopia. +And it is to these forces, or rather to these forms of the force at the +root of all things, that his poems are addressed. In _Les Visages de la +Vie_ he seeks to describe yearning in all its forms and aims; its +distribution in human labour, its restlessness, its vigour, and, above +all, its beauty. But not only human manifestations now appear to him in +a closer cohesion, the synthesis of realism and metaphysics now makes +his relationship to elementary things richer and more heroic. Now, when +he treats some motive he had already treated in the first books, and +these poems of the first and last periods are compared, it is with +astonishment and admiration that you trace the silent growth of these +last years. I will mention one example. He had already sung a song to +the wind. But the wind at that time was to him the evil storm that +tousles cottages, shakes chimneys, forces its way into rooms, rages +across country, and brings the winter. It was a senseless power, +beautiful in its senselessness, but aimless, an incomprehensible +element, a detached phenomenon of Nature. Now, however, the poet in his +maturity looks upon it as the wanderer over the undying world, one that +has seen all countries, that drives ships over seas, that has sated +itself with the perfume of strange flowers and brings it from far away, +that penetrates our chest like an aroma and steels and expands it. Now +he loves the wind as one of the thousand things of the earth which +contribute to the intensification of his vital feeling. + + Si j'aime, admire et chante avec folie, + Le vent, + * * * * * + C'est qu'il grandit mon être entier et c'est qu'avant + De s'infiltrer, par mes poumons et par mes pores, + Jusques au sang dont vit mon corps, + Avec sa force rude ou sa douceur profonde, + Immensément, il a étreint le monde.[2] + +So, too, a tree becomes to him the image of the eternal renewal of +strength, of resistance to the hardness of winter and of fate, of the +will to new beauty in the spring. A mountain no longer appears to him as +a chance raising of the landscape, but a great and mighty thing in whose +keeps secrets lie, ores, and the source of springs, from whose summit, +however, our eyes can sweep the world. The forest interprets itself to +him as the labyrinth of a thousand paths, and as the many-voiced anthem +of life: everything in nature becomes a freshening and a vivifying of +this vitality. _An absolute transmutation of values has taken place from +the time that he has comprehended things as parts of the world's entity, +and as themselves an entity_. Travel, formerly a flight from reality, +now becomes to him the opening out of new distances, of new +possibilities; dream appears to him no longer as an illusion, but as the +capacity of intensifying the real from its present to a future state. +Europe is no longer to him a group of nations, a geographical idea, but +the great symbol of conquest, money, gold, he no longer regards +contemptuously as a materialising of life, but as a new spur for new +ambition. And the sea, which in every succeeding work of his sings its +unquiet rhythm, is no longer the murderous power that eats into the +land, but the holy tide, the symbol of constant strength in eternal +unrest; it is to him 'la mer nue et pure, comme une idée.'[3] Since +everything coheres, he feels related to all in a touching brotherhood +with things; he no longer feels the presence of things, he loves them +like a piece of himself; he feels the sea physically in himself + + Ma peau, mes mains et mes cheveux + Sentent la mer + Et sa couleur est dans mes yeux.[4] + +And so, just as his vital feeling is renewed every time he comes into +contact with the waves, he believes in a physical resurrection of the +body out of the sea, believes that his rising from the water is a +_nouveau moment de conscience_. Verhaeren has returned to the great +cohesion: in Nature and in man there is no longer for him any phenomenon +which might not become a symbol for him, a symbol of the great vital +instinct, to stimulate and fire his vitality. + +And since he now responds to all things with this one feeling, a uniform +conception of the world must involuntarily result from this unity of +feeling. _To the unity of enthusiasm corresponds the unity of the world, +the monistic feeling_. Just as he himself derives nothing but an +intensification and exaltation of his feelings from all things, nothing +but the very sensation of life, all phenomena and activities must be a +synthesis, all forces must flow into one single force as rivers flow +into the ocean, all laws must merge in one single law + + Toute la vie, avec ses lois, avec ses formes, + --Multiples doigts noueux de quelque main énorme-- + S'entr'ouvre et se referme en un poing: l'unité.[5] + +And thus, this straining of all humanity, discharged in a thousand +forms, must be something in common, a fight against something lying +outside of itself, against a resistance which still makes life seem +hard, dull, and turbid. This fight of humanity cannot be other than +directed against something that impedes the sensation of life. And this, +the only thing which struggles against humanity, is in Verhaeren's eyes +the supremacy of Nature, the mystery of divine intervention, the +subjection of man to fate--in short, all divinity that does not reside +in man. As soon as man is dependent on nobody except himself and his own +strength, he too will attain the great joyousness of all the things of +Nature. + +_This fight of man to become God, this fight for his independence, his +freedom from chance and the supernatural--this is the great metaphysical +idea of Verhaeren's work_. His last books seek to represent nothing else +than this one highest battle of man, this struggle to be free from all +that is laid upon him, not by himself, but by Nature, from all that +impedes his will to become a thing of Nature, an elementary force, +himself. This struggle is the highest and purest effort, for + + Rien n'est plus haut, malgré l'angoisse et le tourment, + Que la bataille avec l'énigme et les ténèbres.[6] + +Man in this battle defends himself against darkness, against what is +unknown, against Heaven, against all laws that restrict his expansion; +the whole aim of man, the aim he has unconsciously been following for a +thousand years, is independence, is to become a law unto himself: + + L'homme dans l'univers n'a qu'un maître, lui-même, + Et l'univers entier est ce maître, dans lui.[7] + +To-day he is still counteracted by chance, or, as many conceive it, by +divinity. Wholly to conquer this, to substitute the determination of +one's own destiny for chance, will be the great task of the future. Much +has been taken from chance already. Lightning, the most dangerous power +of heaven, is conquered; distances are bridged over; the forms of Nature +are changed; social communities have by common action diverted the +iniquity of the weather; diseases are from year to year being fathomed +and checked; more and more every incalculable element is being brought +within the range of calculation and fore-sight. But all that is unknown +must more and more be the booty of man, whose highest will is 'fouiller +l'inconnu.'[8] More and more his eyes penetrate the subterranean and +mysterious workings of Nature. + + Or aujourd'hui c'est la réalité + Secrète encor, mais néanmoins enclose + Au cours perpétuel et rythmique des choses, + + Qu'on veut, avec ténacité, + Saisir, pour ordonner la vie et sa beauté + Selon les causes.[9] + +For this battle everybody is a soldier in man's war of liberation, all +of us stand invisibly ranked together. Everybody who wrests from Nature +in increment to knowledge, who does something never done before, +everybody who by poetry fires others to action, tears off a piece of the +veil. With every step forward that man takes against the dark, with +every foot of ground he conquers, divinity loses strength to him; and +this will go on until at length nothing remains of the God of old, until +the identity of the two ideas humanity and divinity is unconsciously +accomplished. + + Héros, savant, artiste, apôtre, aventurier, + Chacun troue à son tour le mur noir des mystères + Et, grâce à ces labeurs groupés et solitaires, + L'être nouveau se sent l'univers tout entier. + +Seen from this height, professions assume a new poetic value. In the +front rank of fighting men Verhaeren sees those the effort of whose life +it is to acquire knowledge--the men of science. Verhaeren is perhaps the +only one among modern poets who has conceived of science as of perfectly +equal value with poetry, _who has discovered new moral and religious +values in science, just as he had already discovered new æsthetic values +in industrialism and democracy_. Most poets had hitherto looked upon +science as a hindrance, because they were afraid of clear things as they +were afraid of real things. They looked upon science as the destroyer of +myths, the negation of every noble superstition which in their eyes was +indissolubly connected with the poetical. But just as machinery seemed +to them to be ugly, because in the machines they saw beauty had +retreated from the outer to the interior form, here too the new ethical +value is hidden not in the method but in the aim. Verhaeren esteems +science as the great fighter for the new conception of the world: 'Le +monde entier est repensé par leurs cervelles.'[10] He knows that the +little increments to knowledge which are continually being made in our +days in thousands of places, in sanatoria and lecture-rooms, +observatories and studies, with microscopes and chemical analyses, +weighing and calculation, with measures and numbers, that these little +additions to knowledge may, by comparison and reproduction, grow into +great creative discoveries which will immensely enrich our vital +feeling. And this hymn to science is at the same time a hymn to our +epoch; for no epoch before ours has so consciously bought for the +advancement of knowledge, none has been so replete with the longing for +new knowledge and the transmutation of values: + + L'acharnement à tout peser, à tout savoir + Fouille la forêt drue et mouvante des êtres.[11] + +In inspired words Verhaeren celebrates science as the highest effort of +our age as of the past; for he knows that what to us to-day is +presupposed and self-evident was a thousand years-ago the goal of the +most ardent effort, that the road we pace indolently to-day is soaked +with the blood of martyrs. + + Dites! quels temps versés au gouffre des années, + Et quelle angoisse ou quel espoir des destinées, + Et quels cerveaux chargés de noble lassitude + A-t-il fallu pour faire un peu de certitude? + * * * * * + Dites! les feux et les bûchers; dites! les claies; + Les regards fous, en des visages d'effroi blanc; + Dites! les corps martyrisés, dites! les plaies + Criant la vérité, avec leur bouche en sang.[12] + +But he knows equally well that the acquisitions of to-day are again only +hypotheses for the new truths of to-morrow. Error is inevitable, but +even error opens out new ways. In the beautiful idea of Brezina, the +Czech poet, all ideal aims are floating islands that recede as we +approach them. The highest aim is in effort itself, in the life which +effort intensifies. Verhaeren's optimism here guards his marches against +banality, for he is sufficient of a mystic to know that it is the +unknowable and the inaccessible that lend all things their impenetrable +beauty. But the knowledge of this must not scare enthusiasm away: + + Partons quand même, avec notre âme inassouvie, + Puisque la force et que la vie + Sont au delà des vérités et des erreurs.[13] + +What if a few last things remain eternally inscrutable: 'plutôt que d'en +peupler les coins par des chimères, nous préférons ne point savoir.'[14] +Rather a world without gods than one with false gods, rather incomplete +knowledge than false knowledge. + +Here, where the heroes of science reach the limits of what is possible +to them, a new group must stand by their side and help them in their +work. These are the poets, who preach faith where knowledge ends. They +must find the synthesis between science and religion, between the +earthly and the divine, the new synthesis--_religious confidence in +science_. Their optimism must force their fellow-men to have faith in +science, as in earlier days they had faith in gods: though proofs fail +them, they must demand from this new religion what the early fathers +demanded for the old religion. And he himself, Verhaeren, he who +once--here again a bitter 'no' is turned into an exulting 'yes'--said in +his beginnings + + Toute science enferme au fond d'elle le doute, + Comme une mère enceinte étreint un enfant mort,[15] + +he himself is to-day the first of confident enthusiasts. Where +individual minds are still at war-- + + 'Oh! ces luttes là-haut entre ces dieux humains![16]-- + +where their knowledge has not yet found a bridge, poets must with +enthusiasm and confidence surmise a path. They must link law with +perception; and in the same measure as the scientists have by knowledge +fed their enthusiasm, they in their turn must feed knowledge by their +confidence. If they have no proofs of actualities, their faith dowers +them with the confidence to say, 'nous croyons déjà ce que les autres +sauront.'[17] They scent and surmise new things before they are born; +they trust hypotheses before they are proved. Already, + + Pendant que disputent et s'embrouillent encor, + À coups de textes morts + Et de dogmes, les sages,[18] + +they hear the hovering wings of the new truth. They already believe in +what later generations will know; they derive vital joy from what their +descendants will be the first to possess. They doubt in nothing; not +that man will conquer the air, quell disease, make life cheerful and +easier; they do not despair in progress, and in their ecstasy they leap +over all obstacles. 'Le cri de Faust n'est plus le nôtre';[19] the +question as to 'yes' and 'no' has long since been joyfully answered in +the affirmative, exults the poet; we no longer hesitate between the +possibility and the impossibility of knowledge, we believe in it, and +faith and confidence is already the highest knowledge of life. In this +optimism of poets other discoverers of knowledge must now fulfil their +growth, from these dreams they must derive strength for their activity; +all men must in this way complete one another, that it may be possible +for them to beleaguer darkness, perfect the conquest of God, and + + Emprisonner quand même, un jour, l'éternité, + Dans le gel blanc d'une immobile vérité.[20] + +For this new truth, the Man-God whom they are to discover, poets and +scholars are the new saints; and his servants are all those whose brows +are fiery with the fever of work, whose hands are scorched with +experiments, whose nerves are strained by constant effort, whose eyes +are fatigued by books. To all of these Verhaeren's hymn is addressed: + + Qu'ils soient sacrés par les foules, ces hommes + Qui scrutèrent les faits pour en tirer les lois.[21] + +But still farther reaches Verhaeren's enthusiasm for those who help in +the new work, for the 'saccageurs d'infini.'[22] Not only the thinker +and the poet extend the horizon of life, but each one also who creates +and is in any way at work. Only the man who creates is really alive and +really a man--'seul existe qui crée.'[23] And so his hymn is likewise +addressed to those who toil with their hands, to those who, without +knowing the aim, toil stolidly day by day in mines and fields; for they +too build the face of the earth, create mountains where there were none, +rear lights by the sea's marge, construct machines and the huge +telescopes that pry on the heavens: all of them forge the tools of +knowledge and prepare the new era. Merchants who send across the ocean +ships that spin threads from farthest shore to shore, they too weave the +net of the great unity; traders who spread gold, who quicken the +circulation of the world's blood, they too co-operate in the battle +waged with the dark. It is their league and union which, first of all, +gives humanity its great strength; they all prepare the hour, the +moment, which must inevitably come. + + Il viendra l'instant, où tant d'efforts savants et ingénus, + Tant de génie et de cerveaux tendus vers l'inconnu, + Quand même, auront bâti sur des bases profondes + Et jaillissant au ciel, la synthèse du monde![24] + +Here in fiery dawns glimmer the days of the future. Tens of thousands +will struggle, will prepare, until at last the one man comes who shall +lay the last stone of the edifice, 'le tranquille rebelle,'[25] the +Christ of this new religion. + + C'est que celui qu'on attendait n'est point venu, + Celui que la nature entière + Suscitera un jour, âme et rose trémière, + Sous les soleils puissants non encore connus; + C'est que la race ardente et fine, + Dont il sera la fleur, + N'a point multiplié ses milliers de racines + Jusqu'au tréfonds des profondeurs.[26] + +For here in Verhaeren's work this vision arises fervent and glowing. +Incessantly man proceeds on the path of his destiny. Once his whole +world was replete with divinity, 'jadis tout l'inconnu était peuplé de +dieux';[27] then one single God took right and might into His hand; but +now, by means of his strength and passion, man has wrested, year by +year, one secret after the other from this Unknown Power. More and more +he has conquered chance by laws, faith by knowledge, fear by safety; +more and more the power of the gods glides insensibly into his hands, +more and more he determines his own life; and the process will continue +till he is in every respect the captain of his fate; he is less and less +subject to laws he has not himself established; more and more Nature's +slave becomes her lord. + + Races, régnez: puisque par vous la volonté du sort + Devient de plus en plus la volonté humaine.[28] + +Gods will become men; exterior fate will return into their bosom; the +saints will henceforth be only their brothers; and Paradise will be the +earth itself. Most beautifully Verhaeren has expressed this idea in one +of his latest books,[29] in the symbol of Adam and Eve. Eve, expelled +from the Garden of Eden, one day finds its doors open again. But she +does not re-enter it, for her highest joy, her Paradise, is now in +activity and the pleasure of the earth. Zest in existence, in life, joy +of the earth, has never been more strongly and burningly exalted than in +this symbol; never has the hymn of humanity been sung with greater +fervour than by this poet--perhaps because he had denied life more +wildly and more obstinately than any other. Here all contrasts sing +together in a harmony without a flaw; the last enmity between man and +Nature here becomes the ecstatic feeling of man's godhead. + +And strange to say, here the circle of life returns to itself. The books +of the poet's old age return to the days of his youth, to the school +benches in Ghent where Maeterlinck also sat, the other great Fleming. +Both, who lost themselves there, have found themselves again on the +heights of life in their conception of the world, for Maeterlinck's +highest teaching also (in his book _Wisdom and Destiny_) is, that all +fate is locked up in man himself, that it is man's highest evolution, +his highest duty, to conquer fate, all that lies outside him, God. This +profound thought, which has thus twice in our days blossomed forth from +Flemish soil, has been achieved on different paths. Maeterlinck has +found it by listening to the mysticism of silence, Verhaeren by +listening to the noise of life. He has found his new God not in the +darkness of dreams but in the light of streets, in all places where men +bestir themselves, and where from heavy hours the trembling flower of +joy is born. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] 'La Conquête' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[2] 'À la Gloire du Vent' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[3] 'L'Eau' (_Les Visages de la Vie_). + +[4] 'Au Bord du Quai' (_Ibid._) + +[5] 'La Conquête' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_) + +[6] 'Les Cultes' (_Ibid._) + +[7] 'Les Villes' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[8] 'La Ferreur' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[9] 'Vers le Futur' (_Les Villes Tentaculaires_). + +[10] 'La Conquête' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[11] 'Vers le Futur' (_Les Villes Tentaculaires_). + +[12] 'La Recherche' (_Ibid._). + +[13] 'L'Erreur' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[14] 'La Ferveur' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[15] 'Méditation' (_Les Moines_). + +[16] 'Les Penseurs' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[17] 'La Science' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[18] 'L'Action' (_Les Visages de la Vie_). + +[19] 'La Science' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[20] 'Les Penseurs' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[21] 'La Science' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[22] 'Les Penseurs' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[23] 'La Mort' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[24] 'La Recherche' (_Les Villes Tentaculaires_). + +[25] 'L'Attente' (_Les Visages de la Vie_). + +[26] 'L'Attente' (_Les Visages de la Vie_). + +[27] 'La Folie' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[28] (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[29] _Les Rythmes Souverains._ + + + + +THE ETHICS OF FERVOUR + + La vie est à monter et non pas à descendre. + É.V., 'Les Rêves,' + + Il faut admirer tout pour s'exalter soi-même + Et se dresser plus haut que ceux qui out vécu. + É.V., 'La Vie.' + +The metaphysical ideal crystallised by Verhaeren from his contemplation +of life, which was at first wildly passionate, but then more and more +synoptical and logical, has been called unity. He has himself recently, +in answer to a question submitted to various men of letters, confirmed +this conception as part of his programme. 'It seems to me,' he says, +'that poetry is bound ere long to be merged in a very clear Pantheism. +More and more the unity of the world is admitted by upright and healthy +minds. That old dualism between the soul and the body, between God and +the universe, is becoming effaced. Man is a fragment of the architecture +of the world. He understands and is conscious of the entity of which he +is a part.... He feels that he is encompassed and dominated, while at +the same time he himself encompasses and dominates. By reason of his own +miracles he is becoming, in some sort, that personal God that his +ancestors believed in. Now I ask, is it possible that lyric exaltation +should long remain indifferent to such an unchaining of human power, +should hesitate to celebrate such a vast spectacle of grandeur? The poet +of to-day has only to surrender himself to what he sees, hears, +imagines, conjectures, for works to be born of his heart and brain that +are young, vibrating, and new.'[1] But he who would build up the whole +image must not make a halt at this stage of knowledge: over against the +logical ordering of external things he must set another of inward +things; against the knowledge of life he must set the feeling of life. +He must set up an ethical ideal as well as a metaphysical ideal, a +commandment of life corresponding to his law of life. + +But great poets never discover a standard of life, a moral precept, +which is not a reflex of the law of their own inner nature. Many +possibilities of contemplation are open to the thinker, to the quiet +observer; to the poet however, to the lyrist, only a poetic philosophy +of life is possible, a contemplation lyrically exalted. Whereas the +philosopher can attain the knowledge of unity by measurement and +calculation, by a perception and calm computation of forces, a poet can +discover the evolution of things in the direction of harmony and unity +only in his ecstasy, only in an exalted state of enthusiasm. He will +perforce recognise a commandment for the whole world in his own +enthusiasm, and in his lyric ecstasy a moral demand of life. 'Toute la +vie est dans l'essor,' for the poet all life is in ecstasy. And just as +Verhaeren never described things in a state of rest, so too his +comprehension of the universe is never conceivable except in the +permanently exalted state of the unrest of joy and motion. + +Verhaeren's relationship to the world around him was ever passionate. He +has always approached things feverishly, as a lover approaches the woman +he desires. Only what he has won by fighting has the value to him of a +possession. Things do not belong to us as long as we pass them by, as +long as we only look at them with unfeeling and cold eyes as though they +were a scene in a play, a walking picture. To feel the connection +between them and us, between the world and the poet, between man and +man, to pass over from the purely contemplative state to the assessment +of values, we must enter into some personal relationship of sympathy or +antipathy. Verhaeren's first crisis had taught him that negation is +sterile, and his recovery had then shown him that only assent, +acceptance, affection, and enthusiasm can place us in a real +relationship with things. + + Pour vivre clair, ferme et juste, + Avec mon coeur, j'admire tout + Ce qui vibre, travaille et bout + Dans la tendresse humaine et sur la terre auguste.[2] + +A thing only belongs to us when it is felt--not so much for us +personally--as beautiful, necessary, and vivid: only when we have said +'yes' to it. _And therefore our whole evolution can only be to admire as +much as possible, to understand as much as possible, to let our feeling +have intercourse with as many things as possible_. To contemplate is too +little; to understand is too little. Only when we have confirmed a thing +from its very roots, confirmed it as necessary, does it really belong to +us. 'II faut aimer pour découvrir avec génie.' And so our whole effort +must be to overcome what is negative in ourselves, to reject nothing, to +kill the critical spirit in ourselves, to strengthen what is positive in +us, to assent as much as possible. Here again Verhaeren is in agreement +with Nietzsche's last ideals: 'Warding things off, keeping things down, +is a waste of energy, a squandering of strength on negative +purposes.'[3] Criticism is sterile. Verhaeren is here as ever a +relativist of values, for he knows that they are incessantly occupied in +a process of transformation in favour of their highest value, and +therefore he holds enthusiasm (the symbol of over-estimation) to be more +important, in the sense of a higher justice, than what is apparently +absolute justice itself. + +For this is the essential: if in our estimation we often over-estimate +things which in any case would preserve their inner value independently +of our 'yes' or 'no,' that is not so great a danger as it is a profit +that our own souls should grow by means of our admiration. 'Admirer, +c'est se grandir.'[4] For if we admire more, and more intensively, than +others, we shall ourselves grow richer than those timid ones who content +themselves with choice morsels of life instead of grasping life in its +entirety, who restrict themselves because they only place themselves in +relationship with a part of the world and not with the whole cosmos. The +more a man admires, the more he possesses: + + Il faut admirer tout pour s'exalter soi-même + Et se dresser plus haut que ceux qui out vécu + De coupables souffrances et de désirs vaincus.[5] + +For admiration means, in the highest sense, subordinating oneself to +other things. _The more a man suppresses his own personal pride, the +higher he stands in the moral sense_. For to accentuate oneself and to +deny what is not oneself needs less strength than to suppress oneself +and to surrender oneself in admiration to all else. Here Verhaeren sees +the rise of a new ethical problem. A whole ladder of values is revealed +to him in the moral standard of freedom and frankness with which a man +can meet his fellows in his admiration; a ladder on whose topmost rung +the man stands who rejects nothing whatever, who meets every +manifestation of life with ecstasy. To be able to admire more means to +grow more oneself: + + Oh! vivre et vivre et se sentir meilleur + À mesure que bout plus fervemment le coeur; + Vivre plus clair, dès qu'on marche en conquête; + Vivre plus haut encor, dès que le sort s'entête + À dessécher la force et l'audace des bras.[6] + +And so strong must this restless enthusiasm grow, this incessant +enthusiasm for things, that the height of the ascent suddenly surprises +one with a rapt feeling of dizziness. The lyrical commandment of the +highest ecstasy is here an ethical standard: + + Il faut en tes élans te dépasser sans cesse, + Être ton propre étonnement.[7] + +In this idea of restless enthusiasm, the principles of which have also +been expounded by Verhaeren in his essay _Cosmic Enthusiasm_ +(_Insel-Almanach,_ 1913), he has established a poetic equivalent to his +other great impulse of humanity, set an ethical ideal by the side of the +metaphysical ideal. For if of old the yearning for knowledge, that +superb struggle for the conquest of the unknown, was the only thing that +placed man in an eternally living relationship to the new things, what +is possibly a still more valuable instinct is discovered in this +incessantly intensified ecstatic admiration. Admiring is more than +estimating and knowing. To surrender oneself in love to all things is +higher than the curiosity to know everything. 'Tout affronter vaut mieux +que tout comprendre.'[8] For in all knowledge there is still a residue +of selfishness, of the pride of personal acquisition, while admiration +of things contains nothing but humility--that great humility, however, +which is an infinite enrichment of life, because it signifies a +dissolution in the all. Whereas knowledge is brought to a sudden +standstill before many things and finds the road blocked with darkness, +in admiration, in ecstasy, there is no limit set to the ego. _Though +many values lock themselves up from knowledge, none denies itself wholly +to admiration_. Even the smallest thing becomes great when it is +penetrated with love, and the greater we let things grow--the more we +enrich the substance of our own life--the more infinite we make our ego. +It is the highest ethical task of a great man to find the highest value +in every phenomenon, and to free this value from the thick and often +stifling rind of antipathy and strangeness. Not to let oneself be +repelled by resistance is the perfection of a noble enthusiasm. If +anything whatsoever is void of beauty, it will have a power which by its +energy expresses beauty. If anything seems strange and ugly in the +traditional sense, it will set the wonderful task of finding out the new +sense in which it is beautiful. _And to have found this new beauty in +the new things was the active greatness of the poetic work, the +greatness which was unconscious and now becomes conscious, which was +knowledge and now becomes law_. While all others considered our great +cities frightful and ugly, Verhaeren praised their magnificence; while +all others abhorred science as an obstacle to poetry, Verhaeren +celebrated it as the purest form of life. For he knows that everything +changes, that 'ce qui fut hier le but est l'obstacle demain,'[9] and +_vice versa_ that the obstacle of to-day may perhaps be the goal of the +next generation. He had already recognised in his poetry what the +architectural movement in the great cities in the last few years has +realised, that huge shops, as emporia of intellectual life, as new +centres of force, provide tasks for art as stupendous as the cathedrals +of old; that in the reek and smoke of teeming cities new tones of colour +were waiting for painters, new problems for philosophers; that all that +in our own time looms bulky and unseemly will to the next generation be +well-proportioned and have to be called beautiful. Verhaeren's +enthusiasm for what is new overcomes the resistance of reverence for +tradition. Verhaeren has rendered signal service to our time by being +the first to recognise and proclaim the great impressionists and all +innovators in art and poetry. For to reject nothing new, to be hostile +to nothing the world can offer, this only is what he understands by +knowing the world as it is and truly loving it. His ladder of values +ends on high in this absolute ideal of admiration of the whole world, +not only of that which is but of that which shall be, of the identity of +every ego with the time and its forms: + + L'homme n'est suprême et clair que si sa volonté + Est d'être lui en même temps qu'il est monde. + +And since this boundless admiration turns selfishness to +dust--selfishness, the eternal obstacle to all purely human +relations--since, in a word, it produces a kind of brotherly +relationship to all things, it also opens out the possibility of +levelling the relationship between man and man. The book _La Multiple +Splendeur_, which has given definite expression to these ethical ideas, +was originally intended to be called _Admirez-vous les Uns les Autres_. +In this book self-surrender is considered as the highest ideal, the gift +of oneself to the whole world, the distribution of oneself among all +people. No longer, as in the earlier books, are energy, strength, and +conquest by strength, the quelling of resistance, the ultimate sense of +life, but goodness, scattering oneself broadcast, becoming the all by +surrender to the all. Greatness in this new sense can only arise by +ecstatic admiration. 'Il faut aimer pour découvrir avec génie.' +Admiration and love are the strongest forces of the world. Love will be +the highest form of the new relations--it will regulate all earthly +relationships; love shall be the social levelling. + + L'amour dont la puissance encore est inconnue, + Dans sa profondeur douce et sa charité nue, + Ira porter la joie égale aux résignés; + Les sacs ventrus de l'or seront saignés + Un soir d'ardente et large équité rouge; + Disparaîtront palais, banques, comptoirs et bouges; + Tout sera simple et clair, quand l'orgueil sera mort, + Quand l'homme, au lieu de croire à l'égoïste effort, + Qui s'éterniserait, en une âme immortelle, + Dispensera vers tous sa vie accidentelle; + Des paroles, qu'aucun livre ne fait prévoir, + Débrouilleront ce qui paraît complexe et noir; + Le faible aura sa part dans l'existence entière, + Il aimera son sort--et la matière + Confessera peut-être, alors, ce qui fut Dieu.[10] + +And in still greater, still more monumental expression, in stone tables +of the law as it were, Verhaeren has compressed his new moral idea in a +single poem: + + Si nous nous admirons vraiment les uns les autres, + Du fond même de notre ardeur et notre foi, + Vous les penseurs, vous les savants, vous les apôtres, + Pour les temps qui viendront vous extrairez la loi. + + Nous apportons, ivres du monde et de nous-mêmes, + Des coeurs d'hommes nouveaux dans le vieil univers. + Les Dieux sont loin et leur louange et leur blasphème; + Notre force est en nous et nous avons souffert. + + Nous admirons nos mains, nos yeux et nos pensées, + Même notre douleur qui devient notre orgueil; + Toute recherche est fermement organisée + Pour fouiller l'inconnu dont nous cassons le seuil. + + S'il est encor là-bas des caves de mystère + Où tout flambeau s'éteint ou recule effaré, + Plutôt que d'en peupler les coins par des chimères + Nous préférons ne point savoir que nous leurrer. + + Un infini plus sain nous cerne et nous pénètre; + Notre raison monte plus haut; notre coeur bout; + Et nous nous exaltons si bellement des êtres + Que nous changeons le sens que nous avons de tout. + + Cerveau, tu règnes seul sur nos actes lucides; + Aimer, c'est asservir; admirer, se grandir; + O tel profond vitrail, dans l'ombre des absides, + Qui reflète la vie et la fait resplendir! + + Aubes, matins, midis et soirs, toute lumière + Est aussitôt muée en or et en beauté, + Il exalte l'espace et le ciel et la terre + Et transforme le monde à travers sa clarté.[11] + +_This sensation of recognising oneself in all things by enthusiasm_, of +living with everything that has existence and a visible form, is +pantheism, is a Teutonic conception of the universe. But in Verhaeren +pantheism finds its very last intensification. Identity is to him not +only cerebral knowledge, but experience; identity is not the sensation +of being similar to things in body and soul, but an indissoluble unity. +Whosoever admires a thing so wholly that he goes down to the roots of +his feeling, that he dissolves and denies himself in order to be wholly +this other thing, is at this moment of ecstasy identical with it. +Ecstasy is no longer what it means in the Greek derivation, the fact of +stepping out of oneself, of losing oneself; it signifies, in addition +to that, the finding of oneself in the other thing. And with this +Verhaeren's cosmic conception goes beyond pantheism. He not only senses +things as though he were their brother; not only does he sense himself +in them, he himself lives them. Not only does he feel his blood pouring +into other beings, he no longer feels any blood of his own at all; he +only feels this strange, glowing sap of the world in his veins. I know +of no more fiery eruption than those moments of Verhaeren when he is no +longer able to distinguish the world from his ego, this unique cosmic +intoxication: + + Je ne distingue plus le monde de moi-même, + Je suis l'ample feuillage et les rameaux flottants, + Je suis le sol dont je foule les cailloux pâles + Et l'herbe des fossés où soudain je m'affale + Ivre et fervent, hagard, heureux et sanglotant.[12] + +All the forms of the elements are a personal experience to him: +'J'existe en tout ce qui m'entoure et me pénètre.'[13] All that has +happened becomes to him a manifestation of his own body; he feels all +cosmic happenings as personal experiences: + + Oh! les rythmes fougueux de la nature entière + Et les sentir et les darder à travers soi! + Vivre les mouvements répandus dans les bois, + Le sol, les vents, la mer et les tonnerres; + Vouloir qu'en son cerveau tressaille l'univers.[14] + +Here the billows of enthusiasm dash higher and higher, this call to +union by enthusiasm grows to an ever more passionate command: + + Exaltez-vous encore et comprenez-vous mieux, + Reconnaissez-vous donc et magnifiez-vous + Dans l'ample et myriadaire splendeur des choses![15] + +For if men hitherto have arrived at no clear and harmonious relationship +with one another, that was because, so Verhaeren thinks, they had not +admiration sufficient, because they were too suspicious of one another, +because they had too little faith. 'Magnifiez-vous donc et +comprenez-vous mieux!'[16] he calls out to them, 'admirez-vous les uns +les autres!' and here, in the last phase of his knowledge, he is again +in agreement with the great American, who, in his poem _Starting from +Paumanok_, preaches: + + I say no man has ever yet been half devout enough, + None has ever yet adored or worshipped half enough, + None has begun to think how divine he himself is, and + how certain the future is. + +For the highest pleasure is only in this highest ecstasy. And therefore +these ideals of Verhaeren are not cold, sober commandments, but a +passionate hymn. + + Aimer avec ferveur soi-même en tous les autres + Qui s'exaltent de même en de mêmes combats + Vers le même avenir dont on entend le pas; + Aimer leur coeur et leur cerveau pareils aux vôtres + Parce qu'ils ont souffert, en des jours noirs et fous, + Même angoisse, même affre et même deuil que vous. + + Et s'énivrer si fort de l'humaine bataille + --Pâle et flottant reflet des monstrueux assauts + Ou des groupements d'or des étoiles, là-haut-- + Qu'on vit en tout ce qui agit, lutte ou tressaille + Et qu'on accepte avidement, le coeur ouvert, + L'âpre et terrible loi qui régit l'univers.[17] + +_To raise these mystic moments of ecstasy, these seconds of identity, +which every one in his life experiences in quite rare and strange +moments, to permanency, to a constant, unconquerable feeling of +life--this is Verhaeren's highest aim_. His cosmic conception is +concentrated in this supreme ideal of an incessantly felt identity of +the ego with its environment, of an identity ever fired anew by passion. + +For not till nothing more is contemplation and everything is experience, +not till this vast enrichment is accomplished, does life cease to be +vegetative, indifferent, and somnolent, not till then does it turn to +pure delight. Not to feel individual feelings of pleasure, but to feel +life itself in all its forms as supreme pleasure, is the last goal of +Verhaeren's art. What he says of Juliers, the hero of Flanders, 'son +existence était sa volupté,'[18] _the fact of life itself was his +pleasure_, is also his own highest longing. He does not want life that; +he may fill out the span that is allotted to every mortal, but that he +may consciously enjoy, and to the full, every minute of life as a +delight and as; happiness. And in such a moment of ecstasy he says, + + Il me semble jusqu'à ce jour n'avoir vécu + Que pour mourir et non pour vivre,[19] + +lines that seem to me unforgettable, as the highest ecstasy of vitality. + +And, wonderful to say, here too the circle is closed, here too the end +of Verhaeren's know-ledge--as we have seen in so many things with +him--is a return to the beginning. Here too there is nothing save an +inherited instinct which has become a rapt consciousness. His first book +and his last ones, _Les Flamandes_, as well as _Les Rythmes Souverains_ +and _Les Blés Mouvants,_ celebrate life--the first, it is true, only +life's outer form, the dull enjoyment of the senses: the last books, +however, celebrate the conscious, intensified, sublimated feeling of +life. Verhaeren's whole evolution--here again in harmony with the great +poets of our nation, with Nietzsche and Dehmel--is not suppression, but +a conscious intensification of original instincts. Just as in--his first +books he described his native province, and again in his last, save that +now the land is bounded by the horizons of the whole world, here again +the feeling of life returns as the sense of life, but it is now enriched +with all the knowledge he has acquired, with all the victories he has +won. Passion, which was in his first book a chaotic revolt, has here +become a law; the instinctive sensation of pleasure in health has been +transformed into a deliberate and conscious pleasure in life and in all +its forms. Now again Verhaeren feels the great pride of a strong man: + + Je marche avec l'orgueil d'aimer l'air et la terre, + D'être immense et d'être fou + Et de mêler le monde et tout + À cet enivrement de vie élémentaire.[20] + +The health of the strong race he once celebrated in the lads and lasses +of his native province, he now sings in himself. And so strong is the +identity between his ego and the world that he, desiring to sing the +beauty of the whole world, is now compelled to include himself and to +celebrate his own body. He who of old hated his body as a prison out of +which he could not escape to flee from himself, he who wished to 'spit +himself out,' now fits into the hymn of the world a stanza in +celebration of his own ego: + + J'aime mes yeux, mes bras, mes mains, ma chair, + mon torse + Et mes cheveux amples et blonds, + Et je voudrais, par mes poumons, + Boire l'espace entier pour en gonfler ma force.[21] + +The feeling of identity has given him absolute identity in regard to +himself. + +It is not in vanity that he celebrates himself, but in gratitude. For +the body is to him only a means of sensing the beauty, power, and +beneficence of the world, is to him a wonderful possibility of enjoying +things by strength in strong passion. And wonderful are these thanks of +an ageing man to his eyes and ears and chest for still permitting him to +feel earth's beauty with all the fervour of old: + + Soyez remerciés, mes yeux, + D'être restés si clairs, sous mon front déjà vieux, + Pour voir au loin bouger et vibrer la lumière; + Et vous, mes mains, de tressaillir dans le soleil; + Et vous, mes doigts, de vous dorer aux fruits vermeils + Pendus au long du mur, près des roses trémières. + + Soyez remercié, mon corps, + D'être ferme, rapide, et frémissant encor + Au toucher des vents prompts ou des brises profondes; + Et vous, mon torse clair et mes larges poumons, + De respirer au long des mers ou sur les monts, + L'air radieux et vif qui baigne et mord les mondes.[22] + +Thus, too, he now celebrates all things to which he is related--his +body; the race and the ancestors to whom he owes his being; the country +fields that have given him youth; the cities that have given him his +vast outlook: he celebrates Europe and America, the past and the future. +_And just as he feels himself to be strong and healthy, so too his +feeling conceives of the whole world as healthy and great_. That is the +incomparable and, probably, the unparalleled thing in Verhaeren's +verses, what makes him so exceedingly dear to many as to me, that here +cheerfulness, worldly pleasure, joy, and ecstasy are sensed not only +intellectually as pride, but that this pleasure is felt positively _in +the body_, with all the fibres of the blood, with all the muscles and +nerves of the man. His stanzas are really, as Bazalgette so beautifully +says, 'une décharge d'électricité humaine,'[23] a discharge of human, of +physical electricity. Joy here becomes a physical excess, an +intoxication, a superabundance without parallel: + + Nous apportons, ivres du monde et de nous-mêmes, + Des coeurs d'hommes nouveaux dans le vieil univers.[24] + +There is now no disharmony between the individual poems; they are one +single bubbling up of enthusiasm, 'un enivrement de soi-même'; over the +many convulsive, quivering, irregular ecstasies of old now flames the +ecstasy of the whole feeling of life. This ecstasy stands in our days +like a figure proud, strong, and erect, exultingly flourishing the torch +of passion aloft to greet the future, 'vers la joie'! + +Here ends Verhaeren's ethic work. And I believe that no exaltation, no +knowledge can again change this last pure form, or make it still more +beautiful. A vast expenditure of force, the effort of one of our +strongest and most incomparable men, has here reached its goal. Once +force seemed to him to be the strength of the world; now, however, in +his purer knowledge, he sees it in goodness, in admiration, in that +force which, with the same intensity as turned it outwards of old, is +now directed inwards; which no longer constrains to conquest, but to +self-surrender, to a boundless humility. Over the immense savagery and +apparent chaos of the first works this knowledge now arches this rainbow +of reconciliation, over _Les Forcés Tumultueuses_ shines _La Multiple +Splendeur_. And to himself may be applied the words he dedicated to his +hymn of all humanity--'La joie et la bonté sont les fleurs de sa +force.'[25] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] G. Le Cardonnel et Ch. Vellay, _La Littérature Contemporaine._ + +[2] 'Autour de ma Maison' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[3] _Ecce Homo!_. + +[4] 'La Ferveur' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[5] 'La Vie' (_Ibid._). + +[6] 'L'Action' (_Les Visages de la Vie_). + +[7] 'L'Impossible' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[8] 'Les Rêves' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[9] 'L'Impossible' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[10] 'Un Soir' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[11] 'La Ferveur' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[12] 'Autour de ma Maison' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[13] 'La Joie' (_Ibid_.). + +[14] 'L'En-avant' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[15] 'La Louange du Corps Humain' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[16] _Ibid. (Ibid.)_ + +[17] 'La Vie' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[18] 'Guillaume de Juliers' (_Les Héros_). + +[19] 'Un Matin' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[20] 'Un Matin' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + +[21] _Ibid. (Ibid.)_. + +[22] 'La Joie' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[23] 'Léon Bazalgette', _Émile Verhaeren_. + +[24] 'La Ferveur' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + +[25] 'Les Mages' (_La Multiple Splendeur_). + + + + +LOVE + + Ceux qui vivent d'amour vivent d'éternité. + E.V., _Les Heures d'après-midi._ + + +Filled with contemporary spirit as Verhaeren's work is, there is one +point in which it appears to stray from our epoch, to be remote from the +artistic preoccupations of other poets. Verhaeren's poetry is almost +entirely free from eroticism. The problem of love is with him far from +being, as it is with most poets, the feeling at the root of all +feelings; it is hardly ever a motive force in his work; it remains a +little arabesque delicately curved above his massive architecture. +Verhaeren's enthusiasms spring from other sources. Love is for him +almost without a sexual shade of meaning, perfectly identical with +enthusiasm, self-surrender, ecstasy; and the difference between the +sexes does not seem to be an essential, but only an incidental form +among the thousandfold militant forms of life. The love of woman, sexual +necessity, is scarcely a force greater than any other in the circle of +forces, never the most important or actually the root-force, as it is +(for instance) to Dehmel, who derives the consciousness of all great +cosmic phases of knowledge from the experience of love. Verhaeren's +horizons are illuminated, not by the flame of the erotic, but by the +passionate fire of purely intellectual impulses. His first books, those +lyric volumes which are nearly always a poet's confessions of love, were +devoted to landscapes and then to social phenomena, to monks, and to men +who toil with their hands. The strength of his drama pulses in conflicts +exclusively masculine. Thus his work, already vastly removed from that +of the other lyrists of our time, is seen to be still more isolated. To +Verhaeren love is only a single page, not the first and not the last, in +the book of the world: this poet has lavished too much glowing passion +and ecstatic feeling on all individual things and the universe for the +cry of the desire of woman to ring higher than all other voices. + +This lack of accentuation of eroticism in Verhaeren's work does not by +any means strike me as a weakness, a missing nerve in his artistic +organism. It may read like a paradox, but it must be said: just this +apparent artistic deficiency indicates personal strength. Verhaeren's +masculinity is so pronounced and strong that woman could never become +the root-problem of his passion, or shake him in the foundations of his +fate. To a really strong man, love, sexual love, is a matter of course; +a sterling man does not feel it as an obstacle and not as a vital +conflict, but as a necessity, like nourishment, air, and liberty. But a +thing that is a matter of course is never conceived by an artist as a +problem. In his youth Verhaeren was never perplexed by love, for the +simple reason that he did not attach sufficient importance to it, +because his poetic interests were in the first place directed to a +mightier possession, a philosophy of life. A sterling man, as Verhaeren +conceives him, does not spend his strength in sexual love. For such a +man the metaphysical instinct, the longing for knowledge, the need of +finding his inner statics in the cosmos, goes before love. 'Eve voulait +aimer, Adam voulait connaître.'[1] Only to woman is love the sense pf +life; to man, in Verhaeren's idea, the sense of life is knowledge. He +expressed this sound idea still more clearly in an early poem: + + Les forts montent la vie ainsi qu'un escalier, + Sans voir d'abord que les femmes sur leurs passages + Tendent vers eux leurs seins, leurs fronts et leur visages.[2] + +Paying no heed to the seductions of love, the strong men, the really +great, ascend to the skies, to spiritual knowledge; they gather the +fruits of stars and comets; and then, only then, when they are +returning, tired by their lonely wandering, do they observe women, and +lay down in their hands the knowledge of the great worlds. _Not in the +beginning, in the vehement days of youth, but only when manhood is +established, only in the time of inner maturity, can woman become a +great experience for Verhaeren_. He must first of all have acquired a +firm footing, must know his place in the world, before he can yield +himself up to love. It is strange that the sonnet I have quoted should +have been written in youth, because, like a presentiment, it relates the +fate of his own life in advance. For the images of women never stopped +his path nor turned him aside from it; love, if I may say so, only +occupied his senses and never absorbed his soul. Not till later, till +the years when the crisis was undermining his body, when his nerves were +giving way under the terrible strain, when solitude reared itself before +his face like an inseparable foe, did a woman enter his life. Then, and +not till then, did love and marriage--the personal symbol of eternal, +exterior order--give him inward rest. And to this woman the only +love-poems he ever wrote are addressed. In Verhaeren's work, which is +graded like a trilogy--in this symphony that is often brutal--there is a +quiet, soft andante, a trilogy in the trilogy, one of love. From the +point of view of art, these three books, _Les Heures Claires, Les Heures +d'Après-midi,_ and _Les Heures du Soir_, are not less in value than his +great works, but they are more gentle. From this savage and passionate +man one might have expected visionary, seething ecstasies, a tempestuous +discharge of erotic feeling; but these books are a wonderful +disappointment. They are not spoken to the crowd, but to one woman only, +and for that reason they are not spoken loudly, but with a voice +subdued. Religious consciousness--for with Verhaeren all that is poetic +is religious in a new sense--finds a new form here. _Here Verhaeren does +not preach, he prays_. These little pages are the privacy of his +personal life, the confession of a passion which is great indeed, but +veiled as it were with a delicate shame. 'Oh! la tendresse des forts!' +is Bazalgette's inspired comment. And in truth, it is impossible to +imagine anything more touching than the sight of this mighty fighter +here lowering his resonant voice to the soft breathings of devotion. +These verses are quite simple, spoken low, as though wild and too +passionate words might imperil so noble a feeling, as though a strong +man, a brutal man, who is afraid of hurting a delicate woman with a +touch accustomed to bronze, should lay his hand on hers only softly, +most cautiously. + +How beautiful these poems are! When you read them, they take you softly +by the hand and lead you into a garden. Here you see no more the murky +horizon of the city, the workshops; you do not hear the din of streets, +nor that resonant rhythm that raged along in cataract on cataract; you +hear a gentle music as of a playing fountain. Passion does not project +you here to the great ecstasies of humanity and the sky; it has no will +to make you wild and fervid; it soothes you to tenderness and devotion. +The strident voice has grown soft, these colours are of transparent +crystal, this song seems to express the vast silence from which those +great passions drew their force. But these poems are not artificial. +They too are of one woof with the elements of Nature; but not with the +great, wild, and heart-moving world, not with the fiery sky, not with +thunder and tempests: it is only a garden that you surmise here, a +peaceful cottage, with birds singing about it, where there are +sweet-scented flowers and silence hanging between trees in blossom. The +adventures are insignificant in feature. You breathe the poetry of +everyday life, but not that of open and wildly surging roads--only the +poetry of closed walls, softly spoken dialogues about little things, the +tenderest secrets of home. These are the experiences of personal +existence, this is the ordinary day between the great ecstasies. The +lamp burns softly in the room, the silence is full of wonderful +tenderness: + + Et l'on se dit les simples choses: + Le fruit qu'on a cueilli dans le jardin; + La fleur qui s'est ouverte, + D'entre les mousses vertes, + Et la pensée éclose, en des émois soudains, + Au souvenir d'un mot de tendresse fanée + Surpris au fond d'un vieux tiroir, + Sur un billet de l'autre année.[3] + +Here you have the deepest feeling, thanks and devotion, not in ecstasy +to God and the world, but addressed to one single being. For Verhaeren +is one who is ever receiving gifts, who always feels that he is being +heaped with favours, who has always to give thanks for life and all its +miracles. Without measure, with that zest, with that incessantly renewed +joy which is the deepest secret of his art, he here again and again +expresses love and gratitude. As Orpheus rises to Euridice from the +nether world, here the sick lover ascends to the lady who has saved him +from the dark. And again and again he thanks her for the good hours of +quietness; again and again he reminds her of their first meeting, of the +sunny happiness of these present days: + + Avec mes sens, avec mon coeur et mon cerveau, + Avec mon être entier tendu comme un flambeau + Vers ta bonté et vers ta charité, + Je t'aime et te louange et je te remercie + D'être venue, un jour, si simplement, + Par les chemins du dévouement, + Prendre en tes mains bienfaisantes, ma vie.[4] + +These verses are genuflexions, folded hands, love that by humility +becomes religion. + +But still more beautiful and significant, perhaps, is the second volume +of the trilogy _Les Heures d'Après-midi_; for here again a new thing has +been discovered, a moral beauty exceeding erotic sensation, a greatness +of feeling such as can only be conferred by the noblest experience of +life. It is a book after fifteen years of wedlock. But in this time love +has not grown poorer. _The deepest secret of Verhaeren's life, never to +let his feelings grow cold and sink to a dead level, but unceasingly to +enhance them, has denied a state of rest to his love also, and raised +even this to something eternally animated and intensified_. And so his +love has been able to celebrate the highest triumph, _vaincre +l'habitude_, to conquer monotony and the dearth of feeling. Perpetual +ecstasy has made it strong. Only he who renews his passion really lives +it. When love pauses, it passes. 'Je te regarde, et tous les jours je te +découvre.[5] Every day has here renewed the feeling and made it +independent of its beginning, independent of sensual pleasure. As in +Verhaeren's whole work, passion has here been spiritualised, ecstasy +soars beyond individual experience. It is no longer an external +appearance that the now ageing couple love in each other. Lips have +paled, the body has lost its freshness, the flesh its gloss and colour; +the years of union have written their charactery in the face. Only love +has not withered: it has grown stronger than the physical attraction; it +has defied change, because it has itself changed and incessantly been +intensified. It is now unshakeable and inalienable: + + Puisque je sais que rien au monde + Ne troublera jamais notre être exalté + Et que notre âme est trop profonde + Pour que l'amour dépende encor de la beauté.[6] + +The temporal has here been overcome, and even the future, even death +have no longer any terrors. Without fear of losing himself--for 'qui vit +d'amour vit d'éternité'--the lover can think of him who stands at the +end of all ways. No fear can touch him more, for he knows he is loved, +and Verhaeren has given wonderful expression to this feeling in a poem: + + Vous m'avez dit, tel soir, des paroles si belles + Que sans doute les fleurs, qui se penchaient vers nous, + Soudain nous out aimés et que l'une d'entre elles, + Pour nous toucher tous deux, tomba sur nos genoux. + Vous me parliez des temps prochains où nos années, + Comme des fruits trop mûrs, se laisseraient cueillir; + Comment éclaterait le glas des destinées, + Et comme on s'aimerait en se sentant vieillir. + Votre voix m'enlaçait comme une chère étreinte, + Et votre coeur brûlait si tranquillement beau + Qu'en ce moment j'aurais pu voir s'ouvrir sans crainte + Les tortueux chemins qui vont vers le tombeau.[7] + +The third volume, _Les Heures du Soir_, has wonderfully closed the +peaceful cycle with a series of poems, which no doubt have old age for +their motive, but which show no trace of lassitude in the artist. Summer +has turned to autumn, but how opulent and ripe this autumn is: the +golden fruits of memory hang down and glow in the reflection of the sun +that has been so well loved. Once again love passes with bright images: +he is changed and purified, but as masterful and as strong as on the +first day. + +I love these little poems of Verhaeren's with a different and no less a +love than that I do his great and important lyric works. I have never +been able to understand why these poems--for as far as the iconoclastic +work is concerned, respect for tradition and fear of innovations may +have scared many people away--have not enjoyed a widespread popularity. +For never since the tenderly vibrating music of Verlaine's _La Bonne +Chanson_, never since the letters of the Brownings, has wedded happiness +been so marvellously celebrated as in these stanzas. Nowhere else has +love been spiritualised so nobly, with such crystal purity, nowhere else +has the synthesis of love and wedlock been more intrinsically fashioned. +It is with a quite especial love that I love these _poèmes francs et +doux_, for here behind the savage, ecstatic poet, the passionate and +strong poet of _Les Villes Tentaculaires_, another poet appears, the +simple, quiet, and modest poet, the gentle and kind poet, as we know him +in life. Here, on the other side of the poetic ecstasy, we have the +noble personality of Verhaeren, in whom we revere, not only a poetic +force, but a human perfection as well. By the luminous gate of these +frail poems goes the path to his own life. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] 'Le Paradis' (_Les Rythmes Souverains_). + +[2] 'Hommage' (_Au Bord de la Route_). + +[3] 'C'est la bonne heure où la lampe s'allume' (_Les Heures +d'Après-midi_). + +[4] 'Avec mes sens, avec mon coeur et mon cerveau'. (_Les Heures +d'Après-midi_). + +[5] 'Voici quinze ans déjà' (_Les Heures d'Après-midi_). + +[6] 'Les baisers morts des défuntes années' (_Ibid._) + +[7] 'Vous m'avez dit, tel soir' (_Les Heures d'Après-midi_). + + + + +THE ART OF VERHAEREN'S LIFE + + Je suis d'accord avec moi-même + Et c'est assez. + É.V. + +Camille Lemonnier, the master of Verhaeren's youth, the friend of his +prime, at the banquet offered by Belgium to the poet of _Toute la +Flandre,_ spoke of their thirty years' friendship, and in a powerful +speech expressed a striking idea. 'The time will come,' he said, 'when a +man, if he is to appear with any credit before his fellow-men, will have +to prove that he has been a man himself'; and then he praised Verhaeren, +showing how completely his friend fulfilled this demand of the future, +how wholly he had been a man, with the perfection of a great work of +art. For whoever would create a great work of art, must himself be a +work of art. Whoever would influence his contemporaries, not only as an +artist, but morally as well, whoever would shape and raise our life to +his own pattern, gives us the right to ask what manner of life his own +has been, what the art of his life has been. + +In Verhaeren's case, there stands behind the poetic work of art the +incomparable masterpiece of a great life, a wonderful, victorious +battle for this art. For only a living humanity that had achieved +harmony, not supple, ingenious intellectuality, could have arrived at +such insight into knowledge. Verhaeren was not intrinsically a +harmonious nature; he had, therefore, to make a double effort to +transform the chaos of his feeling into a world. He was a restless and +an intemperate man who had to tame himself; all the germs of dissipation +and debauch were in his nature, all the possibilities of prodigality and +self-destruction. Only a life secure in its aims, supported on a strong +foundation, could force harmony from the conflicting inclinations he +possessed; only a great humanity could compress such heterogeneous +forces to one force. At the end and at the beginning of Verhaeren's +works, at the end and at the beginning of his life, stands the same +great soundness of health. The boy grew out of the healthy Flemish +fields and was from his birth gifted with all the advantages of a robust +race--and above all with passion. In the years of his youth he gave free +rein to this passion for intemperance; he raged himself out in all +directions; was intemperate in study, in drinking, in company, in his +sexual life--he was intemperate in his art. He strained his strength to +its uttermost limit, but he pulled himself together at the last moment, +and returned to himself and the health that was his birthright. His +harmony of to-day is not a gift of fate, but a prize won from life. At +the critical moment Verhaeren had the power to turn round, in order, +like Antæus, to recover his strength in the well of rejuvenescence of +his native province and in the calm of family life. + +Earth called him back, and his native province. Poetically and humanly, +his return to Belgium signifies his deliverance, the triumph of the art +of his life. Like the ship that he sings in _La Guirlande des Dunes_, +the ship that has crossed all the seas of the world, and, though half +dashed to pieces, ever comes sailing home again to Flanders, he himself +has anchored again in the harbour whence he set sail. His poetry has +ended where it began. In his last work he has celebrated the Flanders he +sang as a youth, no longer, however, as a provincial poet, but as a +national poet. Now he has ranged the past and the future along with the +present, now he has sung Flanders too, not in individual poems, but as +an entity in one poem. 'Verhaeren élargit de son propre souffle +l'horizon de la petite patrie, et, comme le fit Balzac de son ingrate et +douce Touraine, il annexe aux plaines flamandes le beau royaume humain +de son idéalité et de son art.'[1] He has returned to his own race, to +the bosom of Nature, to the eternal resources of health and life. + +And now he lives at Caillou-qui-bique, a little hamlet in the Walloon +district. Three or four houses stand there, far away from the railway, +sequestered in the wood, and yet near the fields; and of these little +houses the smallest, with few rooms and a quiet garden, is his. Here he +leads the peaceful existence which is necessary for the growth of great +work; here he holds solitary communion with Nature, undistracted by the +voices of men and the hubbub of great towns; here he dreams his cosmic +visions. He has the same healthy and simple food as the country people +around him; he goes for early morning walks across the fields, talks to +the peasants and the tradesmen of the village as though they were his +equals; they tell him of their cares and petty transactions, and he +listens to them with that unfeigned interest which he has for every form +and variety of life. As he strides across the fields his great poems +come into being, his step as it grows quicker and quicker gives them +their rhythm, the wind gives them their melody, the distance their +outlook. Any one who has been his guest there will recognise many +features of the landscape in his poems, many a cottage, many a corner, +many people, the little arts of the artisan. But how fugitive, how small +everything appears there, everything that in the poem, thanks to the +fire of the vision, is glowing, strong, and radiant with the promise of +eternity! Verhaeren lives in his Walloon home in the autumn, but in +spring and early summer he flees from his illness to the sea--flees from +hay-fever. This illness of Verhaeren's has always seemed to me +symbolical of his art and of his vital feeling, for it is, if I may say +so, an elemental illness that, when pollen flies along the breeze, when +spring lies out in sultry heat across the fields, a man's eyes should be +filled with tears, his senses irritated, and his head oppressed. This +suffering with Nature, this feeling in oneself of the pain which goes +before the spring, this torment of the breaking forth of sap, of +pressure in the air, has always appeared to me a symbol of the elemental +and physical way that Verhaeren feels Nature. For it is as though +Nature, which gives him all ecstasies, all its own dark secrets, gives +him its own pain as well, as though its web reached into his blood, his +nerves, as though the identity between the poet and the world had here +attained a higher degree than in other men. In these painful first days +of spring he flees to the sea, whose singing winds and sounding waves he +loves. There he works rarely, for the restlessness of the sea makes him +restless himself; it gives him only dreams, no works. + +But Verhaeren is no longer a primitive spirit. He is attached by too +many bonds to his contemporaries, too much in contact with all modern +striving and creation, to be able to confine himself wholly to a rural +existence. There is in him that wonderful double harmony of modern men +which lives in brotherly communion with Nature and yet clings to +Nature's supreme flower of culture. During the winter Verhaeren lives in +Paris, the most alive of all cities; for, though quiet is an inner need +of his, he looks on the unrest and noise of great cities as a precious +stimulant. Here he receives those impressions of noisy life which, +remembered in tranquillity, become poems. He loves to drift in the +many-voiced confusion of teeming streets, to receive inspiration from +pictures, books, and men. For years, in intimate cohesion with all that +is coming into existence and growing in strength, he has followed the +most delicate stirrings of the evolution of art, here too in the +happiest manner combining detachment with sympathy. For he does not live +really in Paris itself, but in Saint-Cloud, in a little flat which is +full of pictures and books, and usually of good friends as well. For +friendship, living, cheerful comradeship, has always been a necessity of +life to him, to him who has the faculty of giving himself so +whole-heartedly in friendship; and there is hardly one among the poets +of to-day who has so many friends, and so many of the best. Rodin, +Maeterlinck, Gide, Mockel, Vielé-Griffin, Signac, Rysselberghe, Rilke, +Romain Rolland, all these, who have done great things for our time, are +his close friends. With associates of this stamp he passes his life at +Paris, carefully avoiding what is called society, aloof from the salons +where fame is cultured and the transactions of art are negotiated. His +innermost being is simplicity. And all his life long this modesty has +made him indifferent to financial success, because he has never desired +to rise above the primitive necessities of his life, never known the +longing to dazzle and to be envied. While others, goaded by the success +of their acquaintances, have been thrown off their balance and have +worked themselves to death in fever, he has gone on his way calm and +unheeding. He has worked, and let his work grow slowly and organically. +And thus fame, which slowly but with irresistible sureness has grown to +his stature, has not disturbed him. It is a pleasure to see how he has +stood this last and greatest test, how he shoulders his fame stoutly, +with joy but without pride. To-day Belgium celebrates in him her +greatest poet. In France, where he was held an alien, he has forced +esteem. The greatest good has been done, however, by the fact that from +foreign races, from the whole of Europe and beyond it, from America, an +answer has come to his great reputation, that the little enmities of the +nations have called a halt before his work, and above all that it is the +younger generation who are to-day enlisted under the banner of his +enthusiasm. Inexhaustible has been his interest in young men; perhaps he +has welcomed and encouraged every beginner with only too much kindness. +For his delight in the art of others is inexhaustible; his infinite +feeling of identity makes him in the highest sense impartial and +enthusiastic, and it is a delight to see him stand in front of great +works and to learn enthusiasm from him. + +This apparent contrast between the art of his poetry and the art of his +life is at first strange and surprising. For behind so passionate a poet +one would never suspect so quiet and kind a man. Only his face--which +has already allured so many painters and sculptors--speaks of passions +and ecstasies; that brow across which, under locks growing grey, the +deep lines graven by the crisis of his youth run like the furrows of a +field. The pendent moustache (like that of Nietzsche) lends his face +power and earnestness. The salient cheek-bones and sharply chiselled +lines betray his peasant extraction, which is perhaps still more +strongly accentuated by his gait, that hard, strikingly rhythmical, +bowed gait which reminds one of the plougher treading in hard toil and +in a bent posture over newly turned turf, his gait whose rhythm reminds +one again and again of his poetry. But goodness shines in his eyes, +which--_couleur de mer_--as though new-born after all the lassitude of +the years of fever, are bright and fresh with life; there is goodness, +too, in the hearty spontaneity of his gestures. In his face the first +impression is strength; the second, that this strength is tempered with +kindness. Like every noble face, it is, when translated into sculpture, +the idea of his life. + +Some day many people will speak of Verhaeren's art; many love it to-day +already. But I believe that nobody will be able to love the poet in the +same degree as many to-day love the art of his life, this unique +personality, as people love something that can be lost and never +restored. If one at first seems to find a discord between the modesty, +gentleness, and heartiness of his humanity, and the wildness, heroism, +and hardness of his art, one at last discovers their _unity in +experience, in feeling_. When one closes the door after a conversation +with him, or one of his books after the last page, the prevailing +impression is the same: enhanced joy in life, enthusiasm, confidence in +the world, an intensified feeling of pleasure which shows life in purer, +kindlier, and more magnificent forms. This idealising effect of life +goes out equally strong from his person and from his work; every sort of +contact with him, with the poet, with the man, seems to enrich life, and +teaches one to apply to him in his turn the appreciation he always so +readily had for all the gifts of life--gratitude ever renewed and +boundlessly intensified in passion. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Vielé-Griffin, biographical note to Mockel's _Verhaeren._ + + + + +THE EUROPEAN IMPORTANCE OF HIS WORK + + Futur, vous m'exaltez comme autrefois mon Dieu! + É.V., 'La Prière.' + +The last force of everybody, the force which finally decides the effect, +which alone and first of all is able to strain his work or his activity +to the highest possibility, is the feeling of responsibility. To be +responsible, and to feel that one is responsible, is equivalent to +looking at one's whole life as a vast debt, which one is bound to strive +with all one's strength to pay off; is equivalent to surveying one's +momentary task on earth in the whole range of its significance, +importance, and periphery, in order then to raise one's own inherent +possibilities and capacities to their most complete mastery. For most +people this earthly task is outwardly restricted in an office, in a +profession, in the fixed round of some activity. With an artist, on the +other hand, it is what one might call an infinite dimension which can +never be attained; his task is therefore an unlimited, an eternal +longing, a longing that never weakens. Since his duty can really only be +to express himself with the greatest possible perfection, this +responsibility coincides with the demand that he should bring his life, +and with his life his talent, to the highest perfection, that he should, +in Goethe's sense, 'expand his narrow existence to eternity.' The artist +is responsible for his talent, because it is his task to express it. Now +the higher the idea of art is understood, the more art feels its task to +be the task of bringing the life of the universe into harmony, so much +the more must the feeling of responsibility be intensified in a creative +mind. + +Now, of all the poets of our day Verhaeren is the one who has felt this +feeling of responsibility most strongly. To write poetry is for him to +express not himself only, but the striving and straining of the whole +period as well, the fearful torment and the happiness that are in the +birth of the new things. Just because his work comprises all the present +and aims at expressing it in its entity, he feels himself responsible to +the future. For him a true poet must visualise the whole psychic care of +his time. For when later generations--in the same manner as they will +question monuments concerning our art, pictures concerning our painters, +social forms concerning our philosophers--ask of the verses and the +works of our contemporaries the question, What was your hope, your +feeling, the sum of your interpretation? how did you feel cities and +men, things and gods?--shall we be able to answer them? This is the +inner question of Verhaeren's artistic responsibility. _And this +feeling of responsibility has made his work great_. Most of the poets of +our day have been unconcerned with reality. Some of them strike up a +dancing measure, rouse and amuse people lounging in theatres; others +again tell of their own sorrow, ask for pity and compassion, they who +have never felt for others. Verhaeren, however, heedless of the approval +or disapproval of our time, turns his face towards the generations to +be: + + Celui qui me lira dans les siècles, un soir, + Troublant mes vers, sous leur sommeil ou sous leur cendre, + Et ranimant leur sens lointain pour mieux comprendre + Comment ceux d'aujourd'hui s'étaient armés d'espoir, + Qu'il sache, avec quel violent élan, ma joie + S'est, à travers les cris, les révoltes, les pleurs, + Ruée au combat fier et mâle des douleurs, + Pour en tirer l'amour, comme on conquiert sa proie.[1] + +It was, in the last instance, this magnificent feeling of responsibility +which did not permit him to pass by any manifestation of our present +time without observing and appreciating it, for he knows that later +generations will ask the question how we sensed the new thing, which to +them is a possession and a matter of course, when it was still strange +and almost hostile. His work is the answer. The true poet of to-day, in +Verhaeren's eyes, must show forth the torment and the trouble of the +whole psychic transition, the painful discovery of the new beauty in the +new things, the revolt, the crisis, the struggles it costs to +understand all this, to adapt ourselves to it, and in the end to love +it. Verhaeren has attempted to express our whole time in its earthly, +its material, its psychic form. His verses lyrically represent Europe at +the turning of the century, us and our time; they consciously +contemplate the whole circuit of the things of life: _they write a lyric +encyclopædia of our time, the intellectual atmosphere of Europe at the +turning of the twentieth century._ + +The whole of Europe speaks with his voice, speaks with a voice that +reaches beyond our time; and already from the whole of Europe comes the +answer. In Belgium Verhaeren is above all the national poet, the poet of +heaths, cities, dunes, and of the Flemish past, the great renewer of the +national pride. But he stands too near his fellow-countrymen to be +measured at his full height there. And in France, too, very few +appreciate him at his true value. Most people regard him there in his +literary aspect only and as a symbolist and decadent, an innovator of +verse, an audacious and gifted revolutionary. But very few perceive the +new and important work that is built up in his verses, very few +comprehend the entity and the logical character of his cosmic +philosophy. Nevertheless, his influence is already tangible. The new +rhythm he has created can be recognised in many poets; and such a gifted +disciple as Jules Romains has even brought his idea of the feeling of +cities to new impressiveness. Best of all, however, he is understood by +those Frenchmen who stand in a mystic communion with all that is great +and urgent abroad; who feel an ethical need, a longing for an inner +transmutation of values, for a re-moulding of races, for cosmopolitanism +and a union of the nations; so, above all, Léon Bazalgette, who revealed +Walt Whitman, the prophet of all strong and conscious reality in art, to +France. Most joyfully of all, however, the answer rings from those +countries which are themselves involved in deep-seated social and +ethical crises, those countries where the need of religion is a vital +instinct, which are eternally hungry for God, above all from Russia and +Germany. In Russia the poet of _Les Villes Tentaculaires_ is celebrated +as he is nowhere else. As the poet of social innovations he is read in +the Russian universities, and in the circles of the intellectuals he is +regarded as the spiritual pioneer of our time. Brjussow, the +distinguished young poet, has translated him, and afforded him the +possibility of popularity. In other Slavonic countries, too, his work is +beginning to spread. + +Verhaeren's success, one may well say triumph, has been strongest and +most impressive in Germany; here it has been unexpectedly intensive even +to us who have worked for it. A few years have sufficed to make him as +popular here I as any native poet, and the most beautiful feature of +his success is this, that people are already forgetting to look upon him +as a foreigner. Verhaeren is to-day part and parcel of German culture; +and much of our contemporary lyric poetry, its welcome turning to +optimism for example, would be unthinkable but for his work and +influence. Countless are the essays devoted to him, the recitations in +which our best elocutionists--Kainz, Moissi, Kayssler, Heine, Wiecke, +Durieux, Rosen, Gregori--have taken part; none of these interpreters, +however, were as enthusiastically applauded as was Verhaeren himself on +his _tournée_ in Germany, which was a great experience no less for him +than for our public, because he gladly felt that his work was now rooted +for ever in German soil. In Scandinavia, where Johannes V. Jensen in his +essays unconsciously transcribed Verhaeren's lyric work, Ellen Key, the +inspired prophetess of the feeling of life, has hailed him as she has +hailed no other, and Georg Brandes, who crowns poets, has welcomed him +with loud acclaim. Incessantly, in an irresistible, sure ascent, +Verhaeren's fame grows. And above all, his poetry is no longer regarded +as an individual thing, but as a work, as a cosmic philosophy, as an +answer to the questions of our time, as the strongest and most beautiful +enrichment of our vital feeling. Wherever people are tired of pessimism, +tired of confused mysticism, and tired of monistic shallowness; wherever +a longing stirs for a pure idealistic form of contemplation, for a new +reconciliation between our new realities and the old reverence for +eternal secrets, for the secularisation of the divine, his name stands +in the front rank. An answer comes from every direction, not because his +work was a question, but because it was in itself an answer to the +unconscious demand for a new community, a demand which is being made by +men of all nations everywhere to-day. + +But all this is only a beginning. Works like his, which are not +paradoxical enough, not dazzling enough, to produce sudden ecstasies and +literary fashions; which, by the mere fact that they have themselves +grown organically into existence, can only grow organically, but for +that reason irresistibly, in their influence; only lay hold of the +masses slowly. Only later generations will enjoy the fruit which we, +with renewed admiration, have seen ripening from the most modest of +blossoms. But already a ring of men of all nations are joining hands, a +ring of men who perceive a new centre of spirituality in Verhaeren. And +we, the few who have wholly surrendered ourselves to his work, must +appreciate it with that feeling only which he himself has taught us as +the highest feeling of life--with enthusiasm, with gratitude ever +renewed, and with joyful admiration. For to whom in our days should one +offer more abundantly and stormily this new vital doctrine of enthusiasm +as the happiest feeling than to Verhaeren, to him who was the first to +wrest it in the bitterest struggles from the depths of our time, who was +the first to shape it in the material of art, the first to raise it to +the eternal law of life? + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] 'Un Soir' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + + +I. LES FLAMANDES, poèmes. Bruxelles, Hochsteyn, 1883. LES CONTES DE +MINUIT, prose. Bruxelles (Collection de la 'Jeune Belgique'), Franck, +1885. + +JOSEPH HEYMANS, PEINTRE, critique. Bruxelles (_Société Nouvelle_), 1885. + +II. LES MOINES, poèmes. Paris, Lemerre, 1886. + +FERNAND KHNOPFF, critique. Bruxelles (_Société Nouvelle_), 1886. + +III. Au BORD DE LA ROUTE, poèmes. Liège (_La Wallonie_), 1891. + +IV. LES SOIRS, poèmes. Bruxelles, Deman, 1887. + +V. LES DÉBÂCLES, poèmes. Bruxelles, Deman, 1888. + +VI. LES FLAMBEAUX NOIRS, poèmes. Bruxelles, Deman, 1890. + +VII. LES VILLAGES ILLUSOIRES, poèmes, illustrés par Georges Minne. +Bruxelles, Deman, 1895. + +VIII. LES APPARUS DANS MES CHEMINS, poèmes. Bruxelles, Lacomblez, 1891. + +LES CAMPAGNES HALLUCINÉES, poèmes, ornementés par T. van Rysselberghe. +Bruxelles, Deman, 1893. + +ALMANACH, poèmes, illustrés par T. van Rysselberghe. Bruxelles, +Dietrich, 1895. + +POÈMES (1e série, i., ii., iii.). Paris, Mercure de France, 1895. + +LES VILLES TENTACULAIRES, poèmes, couverture et ornementation par T. van +Rysselberghe. Bruxelles, Deman, 1896. + +POÈMES (2e série, iv., v., vi.). Paris, Mercure de France, 1896. + +LES HEURES CLAIRES, poèmes, ornementés par T. van Rysselberghe. +Bruxelles, Deman, 1896. + +ÉMILE VERHAEREN, 1883-1896, portrait par T. van Rysselberghe. +[Bruxelles, Deman, 1896.] (An anthology, 'pour les amis du poète,') + +LES AUBES, drame lyrique en 4 actes, ornementé par T. van Rysselberghe. +Bruxelles, Deman, 1898. + +ESPAÇA NEGRA, NOTAS DE VIAJE. Barcelona, Pedro Ortega, 1899. + +LES VISAGES DE LA VIE, poèmes, ornementés par T. van Rysselberghe. +Bruxelles, Deman, 1899. + +POÈMES (3e série, vii., viii., _Les Vignes de ma Muraille_). Paris, +Mercure de France, 1899. + +LE CLOÎTRE, drame en 4 actes, prose et vers, ornementé par T. van +Rysselberghe. Bruxelles, Deman, 1900. + +PETITES LÉGENDES, poèmes. Bruxelles, Deman, 1900. + +LES PETITS VIEUX. London, Hacon & Ricketts, 1901. + +PHILIPPE H., tragédie en 3 actes, vers et prose. Paris, Mercure de +France, 1901. + +LES FORCES TUMULTUEUSES, poèmes. Paris, Mercure de France, 1902. + +LES VILLES TENTACULAIRES, précédées des _Campagnes Hallucinées,_ poèmes. +Paris, Mercure de France, 1904. + +TOUTE LA FLANDRE: _Les Tendresses Premières_, poèmes. Bruxelles, Deman, +1904. + +LES HEURES D'APRÈS-MIDI, poèmes. Bruxelles, Deman, 1905. + +REMBRANDT, étude. Paris, Henri Laurens [1905]. + +IMAGES JAPONAISES, texte d'É. V ..., illustrations de Kwassou. Tokio, +1906. + +LA MULTIPLE SPLENDEUR, poèmes. Paris, Mercure de France, 1906. + +TOUTE LA FLANDRE: _La Guirlande des Dunes_, poèmes. Bruxelles, Deman, +1907. + +LES LETTRES FRANÇAISES EN BELGIQUE. Bruxelles, Lamertin, 1907. + +LES VISAGES DE LA VIE (_Les Visages de la Vie, Les douze Mois_), poèmes, +nouvelle édition. Paris, Mercure de France, 1908. + +TOUTE LA FLANDRE: _Les Héros_. Bruxelles, Deman, 1908. + +JAMES ENSOR, étude. Bruxelles, E. van Oest, 1908. + +TOUTE LA FLANDRE: _Les Villes à Pignons_. Bruxelles, Deman, 1909. + +HELENAS HEIMKEHR. Leipzig, Insel-Verlag, 1909. (Translation by Stefan +Zweig of _Hélène de Sparte_.) + +DEUX DRAMES: LE CLOÎTRE, PHILIPPE II. Paris, Mercure de France, 1909. + +LES RYTHMES SOUVERAINS, poèmes. Paris, Mercure de France, 1910. + +PIERRE-PAUL RUBENS. Brussels, G. van Oest & Cie., 1910. + +LES HEURES DU SOIR. Leipzig, Insel-Verlag, 1911. + +HÉLÈNE DE SPARTE, tragédie en 4 actes. Paris, 'Nouvelle Revue +Française,' 1912. + +TOUTE LA FLANDRE: _Les Plaines_. Bruxelles, Deman, 1911. + +LES BLÉS MOUVANTS, poèmes. Paris, Crès, 1912. + +LES VILLAGES ILLUSOIRES, avec 15 gravures à l'eau forte par Henry Ramah. +Leipzig, Insel-Verlag, 1913. + +RUBENS. Leipzig, Insel-Verlag, 1913. + +LES BLÉS MOUVANTS, poèmes. Paris, Mercure de France, 1913. + +OEUVRES D'ÉMILE VERHAEREN (IV., V., VI., VII., VIII., _Les Vignes de +ma Muraille_). Paris, Mercure de France, 1914. + + + +TRANSLATIONS INTO ENGLISH + +THE DAWN (_Les Aubes_), by Émile Verhaeren, translated by Arthur Symons. +London, Duckworth, 1898. + +POEMS BY ÉMILE VERHAEREN, selected and rendered into English by Alma +Strettel. London, John Lane, 1899. + +CONTEMPORARY BELGIAN POETRY, selected and translated by Jethro Bithell. +('Canterbury Poets' series.) London, Walter Scott, 1911. (60 pp. are +translations of Verhaeren's poems.) + + + +CRITICISMS + + +BOOKS + +Bazalgette, Léon: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. Paris, Sansot, 1907. (One of the +series 'Les Célébrités d'aujourd'hui.') + +Beaunier, André: LA POÉSIE NOUVELLE. Paris, Mercure de France, 1902. + +Bersaucourt, Albert de: CONFÉRENCE SUR ÉMILE VERHAEREN. Paris, Jouve, +1908. + +Bever, Ad. van, et Paul Léautaud: POÈTES D'AUJOURD'HUI, nouvelle +édition, tome 2. Paris, Mercure de France, 1909. + +Boer, Julius de: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. [1907.] (One of the series 'Mannen en +Vrouwen van beteekenis in onze dagen.') + +Bosch, Firmin van den: IMPRESSIONS DE LITTÉRATURE CONTEMPORAINE. +Bruxelles, Vromant et Cie., 1905. + +Buisseret, Georges: L'ÉVOLUTION IDÉOLOGIQUE D'ÉMILE VERHAEREN. Paris, +Mercure de France, 1910. (One of the series 'Les Hommes et les Idées.') + +Casier, Jean: LES 'MOINES' D'ÉMILE VERHAEREN. Gand, Leliaert et Siffer, +1887. + +Crawford, Virginia M.: STUDIES IN FOREIGN LITERATURE. London, Duckworth, +1899. + +Florian-Parmentier: TOUTES LES LYRES. Anthologie Critique ornée de +dessins et de portraits, nouvelle série. Paris, Gastein-Serge, [1911]. + +Gauchez, Maurice: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. Bruxelles, éditions du 'Thyrse,' +1908. + +Gilbert, Eugène: FRANCE ET BELGIQUE. Paris, Pion, Nourrit et Cie, 1905. + +Gosse, Edmund: FRENCH PROFILES. London, Heinemann, 1905. + +Gourmont, Remy de: LE LIVRE DES MASQUES. Paris, Mercure de France, 1896. + +Gourmont, Remy de: PROMENADES LITTÉRAIRES. Paris, Mercure de France, +1904. + +Guilbeaux, Henri: É. VERHAEREN. Verviers, Wauthy, 1908. + +Hamel, A. G. van: HET LETTERKUNDIG LEVEN VAN FRANKRIJK. Amsterdam, van +Kampen & Zoon [1907]. + +Hauser, Otto: DIE BELGISCHE LYRIK VON 1880-1900. Grossenhain, Baumert +und Ronge, 1902. + +Heumann, Albert: LE MOUVEMENT LITTÉRAIRE BELGE D'EXPRESSION FRANÇAISE +DEPUIS 1880. Paris, Mercure de France, 1913. + +Horrent, Désiré: ÉCRIVAINS BELGES D'AUJOURD'HUI. Bruxelles, Lacomblez, +1904. + +Key, Ellen: SEELEN UND WERKE. Berlin, S. Fischer, 1911. + +Kinon, Victor: PORTRAITS D'AUTEURS. Bruxelles, Dechenne, 1910. + +Le Cardonnel, Georges, et Charles Vellay: LA LITTÉRATURE CONTEMPORAINE, +1905. Paris, Mercure de France, 1906. + +Lemonnier, Camille: LA VIE BELGE. Paris, Fasquelle, 1905. + +Mercereau, Alexandre: LA LITTÉRATURE ET LES IDÉES NOUVELLES. Paris, +Figuière, and London, Stephen Swift, 1912. + +Mockel, Albert: ÉMILE VERHAEREN, avec une note biographique par F. +Vielé-Griffin. Paris, Mercure de France, 1895. + +Nouhuys, W.G. van: VAN OVER DE GRENSEN, STUDIËN EN CRITIEKEN. Baarn, +Hollandia Drukkerij, 1906. + +Oppeln-Bronikowski, F. von: DAS JUNGE FRANKREICH. Berlin, Oesterheld und +Co., 1908. + +Ramaekers, Georges: É. VERHAEREN. Bruxelles, éditions de 'La Lutte,' +1900. + +Rency, Georges: PHYSIONOMIES LITTÉRAIRES. Bruxelles, Dechenne et Cie, +1907. + +Rimestad, Christian: FRANSK POESI I DET NITTENDE AARHUNDREDE. +Kjøbenhavn, Det Schubotheske, 1906. + +Schellenberg, E.A.: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. Leipzig, Xenien-Verlag, 1911. + +Schlaf, Johannes: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. Berlin, Schuster und Loeffler, +[1905]. + +Smet, Abbé Jos. de: ÉMILE VERHAEREN, SA VIE ET SES OEUVRES. Malines, +1909. + +Tellier, Jules: Nos POÈTES. Paris, Despret, 1888. + +Thompson, Vance: FRENCH PORTRAITS. Boston, Badger & Co., 1900. + +Vigié-Lecoq, E.: LA POÉSIE CONTEMPORAINE, 1884-1896. Paris, Mercure de +France, 1897. + +Visan, Tancrède de: L'ATTITUDE DU LYRISME CONTEMPORAIN. Paris, Mercure +de France, 1911. + +Zweig, Stefan: PREFACE TO ÉMILE VERHAERENS AUSGEWÄHLTE GEDICHTE IN +NACHDICHTUNG. Berlin, Schuster und Loeffler, 1903. + + +PERIODICALS + +Brandes, Georg: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. _Politiken_, Copenhagen, 8th June 1903. + +Brandes, Georg: ÉMILE VERHAEREN ALS DRAMATIKER. _Die Schaubühne_, +Berlin, 5th April 1906. + +Edwards, Osman: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. _The Savoy_, November 1897. + +Fontainas, André: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. _L'Art Moderne_, Brussels, 23rd +February 1902. + +Fresnois, André du: LETTRE DE PARIS, HÉLÈNE DE SPARTE. _La Vie +Intellectuelle_, Brussels, May 1912. + +Gosse, Edmund: M. VERHAEREN'S NEW POEMS (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_). +_Daily Chronicle_, 17th February 1902. + +Gosse, Edmund: M. VERHAEREN'S NEW POEMS (_Les Blés Mouvants_). _New +Weekly_,18th April 1914. + +Gourmont, Jean de: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. _Les Marges_, Paris, March 1914. + +Krains, Hubert: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. _Société Nouvelle_, Brussels, June +1895. + +Mauclair, Camille: TROIS POÈTES. _Revue Encyclopédique_, Paris, 25th +April 1896. + +Maurras, Charles: LITTÉRATURE. _Revue Encyclopédique_, Paris, 23rd +January 1897. + +Polak, Emile: ÉMILE VERHAEREN EN RUSSIE. _La Vie Intellectuelle,_ +Brussels, January 1914. + +Reboul, Jacques: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. _L'Olivier_, Paris, 15th February +1914. + +Régnier, Henri de: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. _Revue Blanche_, Paris, March 1895. + +Rodrigue, G.M.: HÉLÈNE DE SPARTE. _Le Thyrse_, Brussels, July 1912. + +Sadler, Michael T.H.: ÉMILE VERHAEREN: AN APPRECIATION. _Poetry and +Drama_, June 1913. + +Sautreau, Georges: L'OEUVRE LYRIQUE D'ÉMILE VERHAEREN. _Revue +Scandinave_, Paris, December 1911--January 1912. + +Speth, William: L'INSPIRATION DE VERHAEREN ET LES COLORISTES FLAMANDS. +_La Vie des Lettres_, Paris, January 1914. + +Vielé-Griffin, Francis: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. _La Plume_, Paris, + +25th April 1896. Vielé-Griffin, Francis: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. _Mercure de +France_, Paris, 15th March 1914. + + + + +INDEX + + ACTORS, 131, 133, 174-175. + Admiration, 12, 29, 30, 46, 50, + 101, 172, 183, 217 ff., 259. + Aeroplanes, 4, 164, 209. + Æsthetics, 10, 85, 94, 115, 116, + 151, 205. + Africa, 114. + Agrarianism, 9, 101, 187. + 'À la Gloire du Vent,' 200. + Alcohol, 15. + Alexandrine, the, 32, 41, 48, 74, + 144, 147 ff., 163, 170. + _Almanack_, 197. + _Also Sprach Zarathustra_,134. + America, 15, 24, 108, 113, 115, + 120, 131-132, 135, 231, 250. + Artisans, 16, 131, 194, 211, 235, + 247. + Asceticism, 16, 43, 162, 168. + _Au Bord de la Route_, 57-60, 62, + 63, 68, 111, 149, 236. + 'Au Bord du Quai,' 202. + Auerbach, Berthold, 38. + 'Aujourd'hui,' 4. + 'Autour de ma Maison,' 217, 226. + 'Aux Moines,' 43, 49, 51. + + BAKST, LÉON, 174. + Ballads, old German, 146, 159. + Balzac, Honoré de, 246. + Banville, Théodore de, 143. + Baudelaire, Charles, 59, 120, 142. + Bayreuth, 92. + Bazalgette, Léon, 232, 238, 257. + Beauty, 37-38, 45, 49-52, 83, + 96 ff., 104, 199, 206, 207, 221, + 230, 231, 240. + --, the new, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 83, + 96 ff., 100, 104, 105, 170-172, + 222, 255. + _Béguinages_, 22, 44. + Belfries, 39, 50, 157. + Belgian art, 21-22, 45. + --life, 45. + --literature, 19, 25-26, 37-38. + --race, the, 17 ff., 23-24. + Belgium, 13 ff., 256. + Berlin, 87, 91, 113. + Bersaucourt, Albert de, 135. + Bornhem, 45. + Brandes, Georg, 258. + Breughel, 40. + Brezina, Otokar, 207. + Brjussow, Valerius, 257. + Brownings, the, 243. + Bruges, 21, 39, 43. + Brussels, 14, 32, 93. + + CAILLOU-QUI-BIQUE, 30, 246. + Carducci, Giosuè, 187, 193. + Carlyle, Thomas, 86. + 'Celle des Voyages,' 141. + 'Celui de la Fatigue,' 66. + 'Celui du Savoir,' 76. + Chance, 104, 110, 111, 204, 212. + 'Charles le Téméraire,' 13. + Charles v., 25. + Chiaroscuro, 46, 190. + Chimay, 46. + Christ, 68, 70, 184, 211. + Christianity, 49, 51. + Cities, 3, 4, 6, 9, 13-14, 29-30, + 55, 75-77, 83, 89 ff., 94 ff., + 101 ff., 107, 109, 111-113, 116-118, + 125-126, 131, 140, 165-167, + 181, 191, 197, 222, 231, 238, + 247, 249, 257. + Classicism, 7, 52, 82, 84, 100, + 160, 162, 172, 190. + Claus, Émile, 22. + Cloisters, 9, 22, 25, 26, 43-46, 147, + 165-166. + Colmar, 92. + Comédie Française, the, 149. + Concentration, 188, 194. + Congo, the, 17. + Conservatives, the, 104. + Contemporary feeling, 5 ff., 81-90, + 101 ff., 112, 115, 118, 148, + 182, 234, 248, 254 ff. + Coppée, François, 143. + _Cosmic Enthusiasm_, 220. + Cosmic feeling, 8, 69-70, 74-75, + 81 ff., 112-113, 126, 134, 152, + 179-185, 186, 188, 192, 198 ff., + 219, 226, 228, 231, 256, 258. + --law, 198, 202-203. + --pain, 68. + Cosmopolitanism, 22, 257. + Cosmos, the, 8. + Coster, Charles de, 19, 23, 167, + 168. + Country, the, 9, 15, 26, 29, 30, + 101 ff., 107, 245, 247, 248. + Courtrai, 21. + Criticism, 33-34, 187, 218. + Crommelynck, Fernand, 22. + Crowd, the, 104 ff., 117, 118, 121, + 122, 125-127, 129, 130, 132, + 134-136, 139, 140, 148, 152. + + DAVID, GERHARD, 43. + Death, 60, 61, 63, 65, 69, 242. + Decadence, 18. + Decadents, the, 143, 256. + Declamation (_see_ Recitation). + Defregger, Franz, 38. + Dehmel, Richard, 75-76, 187, 191, + 229, 234. + Deman, Edmond, 32. + Democracy, 9, 77, 81 ff., 108, 109, + 111, 114, 197, 206. + Demolder, Eugène, 22. + Déroulède, Paul, 135. + Deutsches Volkstheater, Vienna, 174. + Dialogue, 129. + + Disease, 55 ff., 102, 204, 209. + Dithyramb, the, 73, 161. + Divinity (_see_ God). + Dixmude, 44. + Dostoieffsky, F.M., 63, 166. + Drama, the, 150, 151, 161 ff., + 194, 235. + Dyck, Ernest van, 32. + + _Ecce Homo!_ 63, 66, 85-86, 119, + 218. + + Ecstasy, 24, 61, 66, 75, 76, 82, + 89, 90, 92, 94, 121, 128, 133, + 136, 137, 139, 152, 165-167, + 169, 173, 183, 184, 187, 189, + 209, 213, 216, 217, 220, 221, + 223, 225-229, 231, 232, 234, + 235, 237-239, 241, 243, 248, + 251, 259. + Edwards, Osman, 174. + Eekhoud, Georges, 22. + Egoism (_see_ Selfishness). + Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 140. + Emigrants, 9, 102-103, 187. + Energy, 50, 88 ff., 92, 95, 96, 99, + 105, 111, 114, 116, 117, 121, + 132, 182, 198, 199, 218, 221, + 223. + Engineering, 4, 5, 9, 82. + England, 13, 55, 63, 64, 90, 92, + 108, 113, 114. + Enthusiasm, 12, 30, 89, 111, 132, + 138, 153, 161-164, 168, 172-174, + 179, 183, 184, 187, 188, 193, + 194, 198, 207, 209, 210, 215 ff, + 220-222, 225-227, 232, 234, + 250, 252, 259. + Epic, the, 19, 23, 150, 151, 161. + Eroticism, 167,172-173, 234, 235, + 237, 240. + Ethics, 6, 115, 182, 183, 187, + 206, 215 ff., 216. + Europe, 9, 13, 20, 23, 101, 114, + 201, 231, 250, 253 ff. + European consciousness, 114. + --feeling, 22. + --race, the, 114-115. + --the New, 9. + Evolution, 3 ff., 10, 82, 105, 142, + 180, 195-197, 213, 216, 218, + 229, 249. + Excess, 15, 16, 24, 31, 40-41, 44, + 61, 121, 139, 232, 245. + Exchanges, 90, 98, 99, 155. + Exultation, 24, 44, 91, 130, 133. + Eycks, van, the, 43. + + FACTORIES, 89, 97, 100, 102, 155. + Faith, 31, 44, 46, 50, 67, 69, 95, + 104, 167, 184, 196, 208-210, + 212, 227. + Fate, 62, 203, 212, 213. + Faust, 72, 209. + Fellowship, 73, 76, 94, 223, 227, 249. + Fervour (_see_ Enthusiasm). + Flanders, 15, 19, 22, 23, 27, 30, + 33, 36, 39, 40, 43, 44, 46, 51, + 168, 197, 246, 246, 256. + Flemings, the, 14, 15, 43. + Flemish language, the, 154, 155. + 'Fleur Fatale,' 63, 65. + Florence, 52, 92, 191. + Force, 232, 253. + Forth Bridge, the, 87. + France, 13, 22, 134, 250, 256. + Future, the, 8, 10, 14, 36, 51, 53, + 89, 104, 115, 167, 180, 182, 201, + 204, 211, 227, 231, 232, 244, + 246, 253-255. + + GAIETY THEATRE, Manchester, 174. + Gauchez, Maurice, 154. + Genius, men of, 18. + Genre-pictures, 40. + George, Stefan, 187. + Germany, 19, 55, 91, 92, 174, 257, 258. + Ghent, 25, 213. + Gide, Andre', 249. + Glesener, Edmond, 22. + God, 6, 7, 47-48, 68, 95, 104, 105, + 109-111, 165, 182, 184, 185, + 199, 203-205, 208, 210, 212-215, + 222, 259. + Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, 70, + 71, 72,139, 158, 160, 193, 197, + 254. + Goodness, 72, 251. + Gothic art, 45. + Greece, 82, 86, 165. + Greeks, the, 52, 84, 172, 190. + Grünewald, Mathias, 92. + Gueux, the, 20, + 'Guillaume de Juliers,' 228. + Guyau, Jean-Marie, 8. + + HAMBURG, 92. + Handiwork, 28, 82, 86, 93, 211. + Harmony, 23, 36, 70, 84, 85, 118, + 125, 127, 130, 146, 149, 160, + 167, 169, 170, 181, 183, 184, + 213, 216, 245, 254. + Hay fever, 29, 247-248. + Health, 16-18, 67, 72, 73, 231, + 245, 246, 251. + _Hélène de Sparte_,162, 165, 169-172, + 174-175. + Heymans, Joseph, 22. + Holland, 13. + Homer, 128. + 'Hommage,' 236. + Horniman, Miss, 174. + Hugo, Victor, 10-11, 32, 120, 134-135, + 138, 142-143, 145, 147, 160. + + Humility, 221, 233, 240. + Huysmans, Joris Karl, 22. + + IDENTITY, 8, 77, 96, 126, 184, 205, + 223, 225, 228, 230, 248, 250. + Iliad, the, 19. + Impressionists, the, 9, 86, 222, 249. + India, 109, 114. + Individual, the, 110, 111, 118. + Industrialism, 9, 77, 81 ff., 101, + 125, 131, 187, 205-206. + Inquisition, the, 16, 169. + 'Insatiablement,' 61. + Instinct, 98, 100, 113, 229, 236. + Intemperance (_see_ Excess). + Intensification, 20, 24, 30, 49, 64, + 66, 131, 137, 152, 162, 164, 190, + 200-202, 207, 220, 225, 229, + 241, 252, 254. + Intoxication, 20, 22, 24, 64, 91, + 189, 199, 232. + Italy, 13, 86, 92, 108, 114, 191. + + JENSEN, JOHANNES V., 258. + Jesuits, the, 25-26. + Jesus, 68, 70. + Jordaens, Jakob, 15, 40, 41. + Joy, 61, 66, 74, 106, 133, 184, 214, + 217, 228, 230-233, 240. + + KAHN, GUSTAVE, 144. + Kainz, Josef, 258. + Kermesses, 15, 31, 40, 43. + Key, Ellen, 258. + Khnopff, Fernand, 21, 45. + Klinger, Max, 128. + Knowledge, 179, 180, 216, 220-222, + 225, 227, 229, 232-234, 236, 245. + Künstlertheater, Munich, 174. + + 'LA BARQUE,' 58. + 'Là-has,' 62. + Labour Party, Belgian, 93. + 'La Bourse,' 98. + 'La Conquête' (_La Multiple Splendeur_), + 109, 114, 199. + 'La Conquête' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_), + 115, 203, 206. + 'L'Action,' 128, 209, 220. + 'La Ferveur,' 204, 208, 219, 224-225, 232. + 'La Folie,' 212. + 'La Forêt,' 77. + Laforgue, Jules, 144. + 'La Foule,' 3, 76, 95, 107, 112, + 152, 185. + _La Guirlande des Dunes_, 246. + 'La Joie,' 55, 66, 226, 231. + 'La Louange du Corps humain,' 227. + Lamartine, A.M.L. de, 32, 145. + 'L'Âme de la Ville,' 95, 97, 105. + 'La Mort,' 211. + 'La Morte,' 64. + 'L'Amour,' 68. + _La Multiple Splendeur_, 109, 114, + 122, 126, 182, 183, 199, 200, + 204, 208, 209, 210, 211, 217, + 219, 221, 223, 224-225, 226, + 227, 228, 231, 232, 233. + 'La Plaine,' 103. + 'La Pluie,' 71. + 'La Prière,' 253. + 'La Recherche,' 207, 211. + 'L'Art,' 11. + 'La Science,' 209, 210. + Latin races, the, 19. + 'L'Attente,' 197, 211, 212. + 'L'Aventurier,' 71. + 'La Vie,' 215, 219, 228. + 'La Ville,' 97. + 'L'Eau,' 201-202. + 'Le Bazar,' 98, 99. + 'Le Capitaine,' 116. + Le Cardonnel, Georges, 215-216. + _Le Cloître_, 49, 162, 165-166, 168, + 172, 174. + 'Le Départ,' 103. + 'Le Forgeron,' 70, 73. + 'Le Gel,' 58. + Lemonnier, Camille, 20-21, 33, 37, 244. + 'Le Mont,' 81. + 'L'En-Avant,' 125, 226. + 'Le Paradis,' 213, 236. + 'Le Passeur d'Eau,' 71. + 'Le Port,' 103. + Lerberghe, Charles van, 15, 22, 25, 26. + 'Le Roc,' 61, 64, 65. + 'L'Erreur,' 208. + _Les Apparus dans mes Chemins_, 66, 72, 73, 76. + _Les Aubes_, 103, 109, 115, 162, 166-167. + _Les Blés Mouvants_, 36, 229. + 'Les Cultes,' 203. + _Les Débâcles_, 57, 60, 61, 63, 65. + _Les Campagnes Hallucinées_, 97, + 101 ff., 162, 197. + _Les Flamandes_, 33, 36 ff., 49, 45, + 197, 229. + _Les Flambeaux Noirs_, 67, 61, 64, 65. + _Les Forces Tumultueuses_, 11, 17, + 115, 116, 123, 125, 132, 137, + 161, 182, 183, 186, 203, 204, + 206, 208, 209, 210, 212, 220, + 222, 226, 229, 233, 255. + _Les Héros_, 4, 228. + _Les Heures Claires_, 237. + _Les Heures d'Après-midi_, 234, 237, + 239, 240, 241, 241, 242. + _Les Heures du Soir_, 237, 242. + 'Les Heures où l'on crée,' 123. + 'Les Mages,' 233. + _Les Moines_, 43 ff., 55, 58, 145, + 162, 165, 197, 208. + 'Les Nombres,' 65. + 'Le Sonneur,' 71, 187. + 'Les Pêcheurs,' 71. + 'Les Penseurs,' 209, 210. + _Les Petites Légendes_, 197. + 'Les Promeneuses,' 98. + 'Les Rêves,' 215, 221. + _Les Rythmes Souverains_, 182, 183, + 213, 229, 236, 253. + 'Les Saintes,' 72, 73. + _Les Soirs_,57, 58, 60, 61. + 'Les Spectacles,' 98, 179. + _Les Tendresses Premières_, 4, 25, 27. + _Les Vignes de ma Muraille_, 141. + 'Les Vieux Maîtres,' 39. + _Les Villages Illusoires_, 70-71, 73, 162, 187. + 'Les Villes,' 91, 204. + _Les Villes Tentaculaires_, 91 ff., + 103, 104, 105, 115, 158, 162, + 166, 197, 205, 207, 211, 257. + _Les Visages de la Vie_ ,3, 55, 66, + 76, 77, 95, 107, 112, 152, 182, + 183, 185, 199, 201-202, 209, + 211, 212, 220. + 'L'Étal,' 99. + 'Le Tribun,' 132. + 'Le Verbe,' 117, 122, 126. + 'L'Heure Mauvaise,' 57, 59, 149. + 'L'Impossible,' 137, 220, 222. + Locomotives, 124, 125. + London, 55, 63, 90, 92, 108, 113, 114. + Louvain, 31. + Love, 7, 29, 66, 72, 86, 170-173, + 197, 221, 223-224, 230, 234 ff. + + MACHINERY, 74, 81-82, 84 ff., + 155, 206, 211. + Madness, 57, 63 ff., 69, 102. + Maeterlinck, Maurice, 15, 22, 25, + 26, 45, 143, 213, 249. + _Maison du Peuple, La_, 93. + Mallarmé, Stéphane, 144. + Manchester, 174. + 'Ma Race,' 17, 35. + Marriage, 94, 197, 237 ff., 243. + Martyrs, 19, 207. + 'Méditation,' 208. + Mendès, Catulle, 143. + Merrill, Stuart, 143. + Messel, Alfred, 87. + Metaphors, 46, 136, 137, 141, + 156, 157, 160. + Metaphysics, 24, 184, 199, 203, + 215, 216, 220, 236. + Meunier, Constantin, 17, 22, 86. + Minne, Georges, 21, 45. + Mockel, Albert, 22, 48, 139, 143, + 157, 189, 246, 249. + Monasteries (_see_ Cloisters). + Monastery of Bornhem, 45. + --of Forges, 46. + Monet, Claude, 86. + Money, 95, 98-99, 102, 103, 114 201. + Monistic philosophy, 202, 258. + Monks, 44, 45 ff., 235. + Mont, Pol de, 14. + Morality, 6, 16, 40, 51, 88, 167, + 182, 205, 216, 217, 219, 224. + Moréas, Jean, 143. + Motion, 121, 141, 217. + Motor-cars, 14, 87, 124. + 'Mourir,' 60. + Multitude (_see_ Crowd). + Munich, 19, 92, 174. + Music halls, 98. + Mysticism, 214, 258. + Mystics, the, 18, 207. + Mythology, 51, 172, 182, 184. + + NATURALISM, 37-38, 41. + Nature, 3, 20, 28, 29, 55, 94, 96, + 99, 105, 112, 123, 125, 158, 172, + 195, 200-205, 212, 213, 239, + 246, 247, 248. + Necessary, the, is the beautiful, + 7, 9, 10, 86, 218. + Neologisms, 154, 160. + Neurasthenia, 56 ff., 118. + New age, the, 3 ff., 105, 206-207, 211. + --European, the, 9. + New York, 108. + Nietzsche, Friedrich, 10, 68, 66, + 85-86, 115, 119, 133, 134, 181, + 218, 229, 251. + + OMBIAUX, MAURICE DES, 22. + Onomatopoeia, 149. + Oppidomagnum, 103, 108, 166-167, + Optimism, 184, 207, 208, 210, 258. + Organisation, 6, 88, 93, 98, 101, + 107, 114, 116, 118-119. + Orgies, 15, 39, 40, 41. + Oxford, 25. + + PAN, 51, 184. + Pan-American, the, 115. + Pan-European, the, 115. + Pantheism, 24, 77, 215, 225, 226. + Paradise, 212-213. + Paris, 55, 87, 93, 108, 113, 114, + 174, 248-249. + Parnassian poetry, 48, 145, 146. + Paroxysm, 63, 64, 89, 188. + _Parsival_,37. + Passion, 48, 67, 77, 92, 97, 99, + 109, 110, 117, 118, 120-123, + 128-131, 133, 135, 136, 147, + 159, 163-165, 168-170, 173, 174, + 179, 181, 189, 194, 212, 215, + 217, 227-229, 231, 232, 235, + 238, 241, 245, 251, 252. + Past, the, 7, 10, 14, 26, 36, 46, + 50-53, 69, 82, 85 ff., 94, 100, + 104, 105, 109, 167, 180, 182, + 207, 231, 246. + Peasants, 16, 20-21, 29, 102-103, + 146-147, 247, 251. + Pessimism, 43, 68, 258. + Petöfi, Alexander, 132. + Philip II., 16, 19,167-169. + _Philippe II._, 92,162, 165, 167-169, 174. + Philosophy, 9, 10, 151, 179, 182, + 184, 187, 194, 216, 236, 256, 258. + Picard, Edmond, 33. + Poetry, the new, 6, 7, 8, 73, 77, + 83 ff., 109, 111-113, 116, 119, + 126, 132, 133, 137, 139, 155, + 205-206, 216, 222. + Poets, the, 50-51, 82, 208-209. + --of the old school, 6, 7, 12, + 51-52, 81 ff., 109, 111-112, 125, + 129-131, 188, 190, 192, 193, + 206, 255. + Pol de Mont, 14. + Poverty, 14, 16, 94, 102-103. + Prague, 91. + Present, the, 3 ff., 10, 51, 52, + 105, 115, 167, 179-180, 182, + 201, 246, 254, 255, 256. + Pride, 23, 70, 72, 219, 221, 224, + 230, 231, 256. + Progress, 3-5, 7, 104, 209. + Prostitutes, 98, 99, 102. + Protestantism, 14. + Pseudoanæsthesia, 156. + Psychology, 47, 113, 180. + Puritanism, 16. + + RABELAIS, FRANÇOIS, 40. + Realism, 37-38, 199. + Reality, 6, 7, 37-38, 50-52, 70, + 81, 85-86, 111, 114, 115, 131, + 153, 155, 167, 179, 183, 185, + 192, 196, 198, 199, 201, 204, + 206, 255, 259. + Recitation, 122-123, 128 ff., 136, + 139, 149, 157. + Reinhardt, Max, 174. + Religion, 6, 9, 24, 44, 47, 50, 64, + 67, 105, 182-184, 196, 205, 208, + 211, 238, 240, 257. + --, a new, 6, 20, 50, 88, 104. + Rembrandt, 11, 43, 46, 187. + _Rembrandt_, 2, 11. + Renan, Ernest, 85. + Renunciation, 19, 27, 44, 52. + Responsibility, 253 ff. + Revolt, 16, 30, 42, 62, 99, 117, + 122, 142-146, 160, 169, 195, + 229, 256. + Rhapsodists, 128 ff. + Rhetoricians, 134. + Rhyme, 144, 153, 155. + Rhythm, 24, 41, 74, 94, 95, 97, + 105, 116, 118 ff., 137, 141, + 146 ff., 153, 157, 163, 173, 174, + 193, 194, 201, 238, 247, 251, 256. + --of life, the, 5, 7, 8, 11, 117 ff. + Rilke, Rainer Maria, 154, 187, 249. + _Ring, The_, 37. + Rodenbach, Georges, 21, 25, 26, 39. + Rodin, Auguste, 135, 249. + Rolland, Romain, 249, + Romains, Jules, 256-257. + Roman Catholicism, 14, 16, 24, + 26, 31, 44, 46, 67, 69, 162, 165-166, + 168-169, 184. + Romanticism, 46. + Romanticists, the, 50, 147. + Rome, 108, 114. + Rops, Félicien, 22. + Rubens, Peter Paul, 20, 40, 41, + 43, 58. + Rubinstein, Ida, 174. + Ruskin, John, 82. + Russia, 257. + Russians, the, 43. + Rysselberghe, Théo van, 22, 249. + + ST. AMAND, 27- + Saint-Cloud, 249. + 'Saint Georges,' 72, 73. + Sainte-Barbe, College of, 25-26, 30, 213. + St. Petersburg, 114. + Saints, 19, 210, 212. + 'S'amoindrir,' 60. + Scandinavia, 18, 258. + Scheldt, the, 27, 28. + Schiller, Friedrich, 134,158, 160, 168. + Schlaf, Johannes, 65. + Scholars, 209, 210. + Science, 6, 9, 18, 64, 77, 82, 85, + 108, 155, 205-209, 222. + Sea, the, 13, 15, 30, 103, 201, + 202, 247, 248. + Selfishness, 72, 223. + Sensations, 6-9, 65,104, 120, 125, + 130, 164, 188, 189, 190, 192, + 202, 203, 225, 240. + Sensuality, 15, 16, 24, 40, 41, 44, + 98, 162, 170-172, 241, 245. + Sex, 234 ff. + Shakespeare, William, 10, 163. + Signac, Paul, 249. + Silence, 44-46, 117, 122, 130, 214, 239 + 'Si Morne,' 61. + Social feeling, 83, 110. + --problem, the, 8, 9, 101 ff., 187. + Socialism, 9, 24, 89, 93, 224. + Society, 249. + Solitude, 44, 55, 57, 69, 70, 76, + 81, 83, 86, 91, 112, 237. + Sonnets, 41, 46. + Soul, 43, 89, 141, 182, 225, 237. + 'Sous les Prétoriens,' 111. + Spain, 16, 55, 92, 162, 165, 191. + Spaniards, the, 16. + Stappen, van der, 22. + Stevens, Alfred, 22. + Strauss, David, 50. + Suicide, 62, 64, 65. + Superman, the, 115. + Symbolism, 71, 99, 143 ff. + Symbolists, the, 143 ff., 256. + Symbols, 7, 19,21, 45, 47, 51, 70, + 71, 72, 92, 104, 107, 144, 163, + 165, 168, 195, 201, 202, 213, + 218, 237, 247, 248. + Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 160. + + TAMERLAINE, 108. + _Tannhäuser_,37. + Teutonic elements, 14, 18, 24, 39, + 146, 159, 194, 225. + Thames, the, 64. + _Thyl Ulenspiegel_, 19, 167, 168. + Toledo, 191. + Tolstoy, Leo, 82. + Torpedo-boats, 87. + _Toute la Flandre_, 4, 23, 25, 27, + 168, 197, 244, 246. + Town (_see_ City). + Tradition, 26, 27, 85, 92, 145, 146, 243. + Travel, 55, 91-92, 124, 201. + 'Truandailies,' 40. + Truth, 37-38. + Turner, J.M.W., 152. + + UNITY, 23, 108, 113, 114, 199, + 202, 203, 211, 215 ff., 225, 252. + Université Libre, Brussels, 93. + Unknown, the, 3, 6, 69, 204, 207, + 212, 220, 224. + 'Un Matin,' 229. + 'Un Soir ' (_Au Bord de la Route_), 63, 68. + 'Un Soir' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_), 183, 186, 255. + Utopia, 109, 115, 167, 199. + + VANDERVELDE, EMIL, 93. + Vellay, Charles, 215-216. + Venice, 13. + + Verhaeren, Émile, born at St. Amand on the + Scheldt, 1855, 27; his boyhood, 27-28; educated at + the College of Sainte-Barbe in Ghent, 25-26; + studies jurisprudence at Louvain, 31; called to the + bar in Brussels, 32; his first verses, 32, 33, 145 + ff.; publication of _Les Flamandes,_ 33 ff.; + resides for three weeks in the monastery of + Forges, 46; publication of _Les Moines_, 45 ff.; + his health breaks down, 55 ff., 237; his illness + is described in _Les Soirs, Les Débâcles, Les + Flambeaux Noirs,_ and _Au Bord de la Route_, 57 + ff.; his travels, 55, 91-92, 124; he is obsessed + by the atmosphere of London, 55; his recovery is + symbolised in some of the poems of _Les Villages + Illusoires_, 70-71; his marriage, 94, 237 ff., 243; + his connection with the Labour Party and + Socialism, 89, 93-94; the Flemish element in his + style, 154-155; his technique, 141 ff.; stage + performances of his dramas, 164, 174-175; how he + recites his poetry, 122-123; he resides at + Caillou-qui-bique and Saint-Cloud, 30, 93, 246, + 248-249; his personal appearance, 67, 251; his + personality, 244 ff. + + Verlaine, Paul, 69, 120, 142, 144, 243. + 'Vers,' 60. + 'Vers la Mer,' 152. + 'Vers le Cloître,' 63. + 'Vers le Futur,' 104, 205, 207. + _Vers libre_, the, 74, 144 ff., 163. + _Vers ternaire, le_, 147. + Vielé-Griffin, Francis, 143, 246, 249. + Vienna, 91, 114, 174. + Vitality, 12, 15, 16, 19, 24, 32, + 33, 40, 43, 119, 131, 190, 200-202, + 206, 229, 248, 258. + + WAGNER, RICHARD, 37, 92. + Walloons, the, 14, 22. + Weyden, Roger van der, 43. + Whistler, J. M'Neill, 86. + Whitman, Walt, 24, 86, 108-109, + 115, 132, 134, 187, 190-191, + 227 257. + Will, the, 23, 60-62, 73-74, 133, + 181, 194-195, 198, 203, 212, + 223. + _Wisdom and Destiny_, 213. + Woman, 172-173, 192, 234 ff. + Women, Belgian, 17. + + YPRES, 21, 43. + + ZOLA, ÉMILE, 37. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Émile Verhaeren, by Stefan Zweig + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ÉMILE VERHAEREN *** + +***** This file should be named 35387-8.txt or 35387-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/3/8/35387/ + +Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Émile Verhaeren + +Author: Stefan Zweig + +Translator: Jethro Bithell + +Release Date: February 24, 2011 [EBook #35387] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ÉMILE VERHAEREN *** + + + + +Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org + + + + + +</pre> + +<h1>ÉMILE VERHAEREN</h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>STEFAN ZWEIG</h2> + +<h5>LONDON</h5> + +<h5>CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LTD</h5> + +<h5>1914</h5> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 283px;"> +<img src="images/verhaeren.png" width="283" alt="Émile Verhaeren from an unpublished photograph by +Charles Bernier, 1914." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Émile Verhaeren from an unpublished photograph by +Charles Bernier, 1914.</span> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h3> + + +<p>Four years have passed since the present volume appeared simultaneously +in German and French. In the meantime Verhaeren's fame has been +spreading; but in English-speaking countries he is still not so well +known as he deserves to be.</p> + +<p>Something of his philosophy—if it may be called philosophy rather than +a poet's inspired visualising of the world—has passed into the public +consciousness in a grotesquely distorted form in what is known as +'futurism.' So long as futurism is associated with those who have +acquired a facile notoriety by polluting the pure idea, it would be an +insult to Verhaeren to suggest that he is to be classed with the +futurists commonly so-called; but the whole purpose of the present +volume will prove that the gospel of a very serious and reasoned +futurism is to be found in Verhaeren's writings.</p> + +<p>Of the writer of the book it may be said that there was no one more +fitted than he to write the authentic exposition of the teaching which +he has hailed as a new religion. His relations to the Master are not +only those of a fervent disciple,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span> but of an apostle whose labour of +love has in German-speaking lands and beyond been crowned with signal +success. Himself a lyrist of distinction, Stefan Zweig has accomplished +the difficult feat, which in this country still waits to be done, of +translating the great mass of Verhaeren's poems into actual and enduring +verse. Another book of his on Verlaine is already known in an English +rendering; so that he bids fair to become known in this country as one +of the most gifted of the writers of Young-Vienna.</p> + +<p>As to the translation, I have endeavoured to be faithful to my text, +which is the expression of a personality. Whatever divergences there are +have been necessitated by the lapse of time. For help in reading the +proofs I have to thank Mr. M.T.H. Sadler and Mr. Fritz Voigt.</p> + +<p class="content"> +<span style="margin-left: 23.5em;">J. BITHELL.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">HAMMERFIELD,</span><br /> +<i>Nr</i>. HEMEL HEMPSTEAD,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">14<i>th July</i> 1914.</span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 95%;" /> + +<p class="caption"> +CONTENTS</p> +<p class="content"> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">PART I</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_NEW_AGE">THE NEW AGE</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_NEW_BELGIUM">THE NEW BELGIUM</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#YOUTH_IN_FLANDERS">YOUTH IN FLANDERS</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#LES_FLAMANDES">'LES FLAMANDES'</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_MONKS">THE MONKS</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_BREAK-DOWN">THE BREAK-DOWN</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#FLIGHT_INTO_THE_WORLD">FLIGHT INTO THE WORLD</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">PART II</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#CONTEMPORARY_FEELING">CONTEMPORARY FEELING</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#TOWNS_LES_VILLES_TENTACULAIRES">TOWNS ('LES VILLES TENTACULAIRES')</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_MULTITUDE">THE MULTITUDE</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_RHYTHM_OF_LIFE">THE RHYTHM OF LIFE</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_NEW_PATHOS">THE NEW PATHOS</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#VERHAERENS_POETIC_METHOD">VERHAEREN'S POETIC METHOD</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#VERHAERENS_DRAMA">VERHAEREN'S DRAMA</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">PART III</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#COSMIC_POETRY">COSMIC POETRY</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_LYRIC_UNIVERSE">THE LYRIC UNIVERSE</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#SYNTHESES">SYNTHESES</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_ETHICS_OF_FERVOUR">THE ETHICS OF FERVOUR</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#LOVE">LOVE</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_ART_OF_VERHAERENS_LIFE">THE ART OF VERHAEREN'S LIFE</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_EUROPEAN_IMPORTANCE_OF_HIS_WORK">THE EUROPEAN IMPORTANCE OF HIS WORK</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#BIBLIOGRAPHY">BIBLIOGRAPHY</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#INDEX">INDEX</a></span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3>PART I</h3> + +<h3>DECIDING FORCES</h3> + +<h4>LES FLAMANDES—LES MOINES—LES SOIRS—LES</h4> + +<h4>DÉBÂCLES—LES FLAMBEAUX NOIRS—AU BORD DE</h4> + +<h4>LA ROUTE—LES APPARUS DANS MES CHEMINS</h4> + +<h4>1883-1893</h4> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<blockquote><p>Son tempérament, son caractère, sa vie, tout conspire à nous montrer son +art tel que nous avons essayé de le définir. Une profonde unité les +scelle. Et n'est-ce pas vers la découverte de cette unité-là , qui groupe +en un faisceau solide les gestes, les pensées et les travaux d'un génie +sur la terre, que la critique, revenue enfin de tant d'erreurs, devait +tendre uniquement?</p></blockquote> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 22.5em;">VERHAEREN, <i>Rembrandt.</i></span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="THE_NEW_AGE" id="THE_NEW_AGE"></a>THE NEW AGE</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Tout bouge—et l'on dirait les horizons en marche.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 20em;">É.V., 'La Foule.'</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>The feeling of this age of ours, of this our moment in eternity, is +different in its conception of life from that of our ancestors. Only +eternal earth has changed not nor grown older, that field, gloomed by +the Unknown, on which the monotonous light of the seasons divides, in a +rhythmic round, the time of blossoms and of their withering; changeless +only are the action of the elements and the restless alternation of +night and day. But the aspect of earth's spirit has changed, all that is +subjected to the toil of man. Has changed, to change again. The +evolution of the phenomena of culture seems to proceed with ever greater +rapidity: never was the span of a hundred years as rich, as replete as +that which stretches to the threshold of our own days. Cities have shot +up which are as huge and bewildering, as impenetrable and as endless, as +nothing else has been save those virgin forests now fast receding before +the onward march of the tilled land. More and more the work of man +achieves the grandiose and elementary character that was once Nature's +secret. The lightning is in his hands, and protection from the +weather's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> sudden onslaughts; lands that once yawned far apart are now +forged together by the iron hoop with which of old only the narrow +strait was arched; oceans are united that have sought each other for +thousands of years; and now in the very air man is building a new road +from country to country. All has changed.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Tout a changé: les ténèbres et les flambeaux.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Les droits et les devoirs out fait d'autres faisceaux,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Du sol jusqu'au soleil, une neuve énergie</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Diverge un sang torride, en la vie élargie;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Des usines de fonte ouvrent, sous le ciel bleu,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Des cratères en flamme et des fleuves en feu;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">De rapides vaisseaux, sans rameurs et sans voiles,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">La nuit, sur les flots bleus, étonnent les étoiles;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Tout peuple réveillé se forge une autre loi;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Autre est le crime, autre est l'orgueil, autre est l'exploit.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Changed, too, is the relation of individual to individual, of the +individual to the whole; at once more onerous and less burdensome is the +network of social laws, at once more onerous and less burdensome our +whole life.</p> + +<p>But a still greater thing has happened. Not only the real forms, the +transitory facts of life have changed, not only do we live in other +cities, other houses, not only are we dressed in different clothes, but +the infinite above us too, that which seemed unshakable, has changed +from what it was for our fathers and forefathers. Where the actual +changes, the relative changes also. The most elementary forms of our +conception, space<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> and time, have been displaced. Space has become other +than it was, for we measure it with new velocities. Roads that took our +forefathers days to traverse can now be covered in one short hour; one +flying night transports us to warm and luxuriant lands that were once +separated from us by the hardships of a long journey. The perilous +forests of the tropics with their strange constellations, to see which +cost those of old a year of their lives, are of a sudden near to us and +easy of access. We measure differently with these different velocities +of life. Time is more and more the victor of space. The eye, too, has +learned other distances, and in cold constellations is startled to +perceive the forms of primeval landscapes petrified; and the human voice +seems to have grown a thousand times stronger since it has learned to +carry on a friendly conversation a hundred miles away. In this new +relationship of forces we have a different perception of the spanning +round of the earth, and the rhythm of life, beating more brightly and +swiftly, is likewise becoming new for us. The distance from springtime +to springtime is greater now and yet less, greater and yet less is the +individual hour, greater and less our whole life.</p> + +<p>And therefore is it with new feelings that we must comprehend this new +age. For we all feel that we must not measure the new with the old +measures our forefathers used, that we must not live through the new +with feelings outworn, that we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> must discover a new sense of distance, a +new sense of time, a new sense of space, that we must find a new music +for this nervous, feverish rhythm around us. This new-born human +conditionality calls for a new morality; this new union of equals a new +beauty; this new topsy-turvydom a new system of ethics. And this new +confrontation with another and still newer world, with another Unknown, +demands a new religion, a new God. A new sense of the universe is, with +a muffled rumour, welling up in the hearts of all of us.</p> + +<p>New things, however, must be coined into new words. A new age calls for +new poets, poets whose conceptions have been nurtured by their +environment, poets who, in the expression they give to this new +environment, themselves vibrate with the feverish rotation of life. But +so many of our poets are pusillanimous. They feel that their voices are +out of harmony with reality; they feel that they are not incorporated +with the new organism and a necessary part of it; they have a dull +foreboding that they do not speak the language of our contemporary life. +In our great cities they are like strangers stranded. The great roaring +streams of our new sensations are to them terrific and inconceivable. +They are ready to accept all the comfort and luxury of modern life; they +are quick to take advantage of the facilities afforded by technical +science and organisation; but for their poetry they reject these +phenomena, because they cannot master<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> them. They recoil from the task +of transmuting poetical values, of sensing whatever is poetically new in +these new things. And so they stand aside. They flee from the real, the +contemporary, to the immutable; they take refuge in whatsoever the +eternal evolution has left untouched; they sing the stars, the +springtime, the babbling of springs which is now as it ever was, the +myth of love; they hide behind the old symbols; they nestle to the old +gods. Not from the moment, from the molten flowing ore, do they seize +and mould the eternal—no, as ever of old they dig the symbols of the +eternal out of the cold clay of the past, like old Greek statues. They +are not on that account insignificant; but at best they produce +something important, never anything necessary.</p> + +<p>For only that poet can be necessary to our time who himself feels that +everything in this time is necessary, and therefore beautiful. He must +be one whose whole endeavour as poet and man it is to make his own +sensations vibrate in unison with contemporary sensations; who makes the +rhythm of his poem nothing else than the echoed rhythm of living things; +who adjusts the beat of his verse to the beat of our own days, and takes +into his quivering veins the streaming blood of our time. He must not on +this account, when seeking to create new ideals, be a stranger to the +ideals of old; for all true progress is based on the deepest +understanding of the past. Progress<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> must be for him as Guyau interprets +it: 'Le pouvoir, lorsqu'on est arrivé à un état supérieur, d'éprouver +des émotions et des sensations nouvelles, sans cesser d'être encore +accessible à ce que contenaient de grand ou de beau ses précédantes +émotions.'<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> A poet of our time can only be great when he conceives +this time as great. The preoccupations of his time must be his also; its +social problem must be his personal concern. In such a poet succeeding +generations would see how man has fought a way to them from the past, +how in every moment as it passed he has wrestled to identify the feeling +of his own mind with that of the cosmos. And even though the great works +of such a poet should be soon disintegrated and his poems obsolete, +though his images should have paled, there would yet remain imperishably +vivid that which is of greater moment, the invisible motives of his +inspiration, the melody, the breath, the rhythm of his time. Such poets, +besides pointing the way to the coming generation, are in a deeper sense +the incarnation of their own period. Hence the time has come to speak of +Émile Verhaeren, the greatest of modern poets, and perhaps the only one +who has been conscious of what is poetical in contemporary feeling, the +only one who has shaped that feeling in verse, the first poet who, with +skill incomparably inspired, has chiselled our epoch into a mighty +monument of rhyme.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p> + +<p>In Verhaeren's work our age is mirrored. The new landscapes are in it; +the sinister silhouettes of the great cities; the seething masses of a +militant democracy; the subterranean shafts of mines; the last heavy +shadows of silent, dying cloisters. All the intellectual forces of our +time, our time's ideology, have here become a poem; the new social +ideas, the struggle of industrialism with agrarianism, the vampire force +which lures the rural population from the health-giving fields to the +burning quarries of the great city, the tragic fate of emigrants, +financial crises, the dazzling conquests of science, the syntheses of +philosophy, the triumphs of engineering, the new colours of the +impressionists. All the manifestations of the new age are here reflected +in a poet's soul in their action—first confused, then understood, then +joyfully acclaimed—on the sensations of a New European. How this work +came into being, out of what resistance and crises a poet has here +conquered the consciousness of the necessity and then of the beauty of +the new cosmic phase, it shall be our task to show. If the time has +indeed come to class Verhaeren, it is not so much with the poets that +his place will be found. He does not so much stand with or above the +verse-smiths or actual artists in verse, with the musicians, or +painters, as rather with the great organisers, those who have forced the +new social currents to flow between dikes; with the legislators who +prevent the clashing of flamboyant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> energies; with the philosophers, who +aim at co-ordinating and unifying all these vastly complicated +tendencies in one brilliant synthesis. His poetry is a created poet's +world; it is a resolute shaping of phases, a considered new æstheticism, +and a conscious new inspiration. He is not only the poet, he is at the +same time the preacher of our time. He was the first to conceive of it +as <i>beautiful</i>, but not like those who, in their zeal for embellishment, +tone down the dark colours and bring out the bright ones; he has +conceived of it—we shall have to show with what a painful and intensive +effort—after his first most obstinate rejection of it, as a necessity, +and he has then transformed this conception of its necessity, of its +purpose, into beauty. Ceasing to look backwards, he has looked forwards. +He feels, quite in the spirit of evolution, in the spirit of Nietzsche, +that our generation is raised high above all the past, that it is the +summit of all that is past, and the turning-point towards the future. +This will perhaps seem too much to many people, who are inclined to call +our generation wretched and paltry, as though they had some inner +knowledge of the magnificence or the paltriness of generations gone. For +every generation only becomes great by the men who do not despair of it, +only becomes great by its poets who conceive of it as great, by its +charioteers of state who have confidence in its power of greatness. Of +Shakespeare and Hugo<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> Verhaeren says: 'Ils grandissaient leur +siècle.'<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> They did not depict it with the perspective of others, but +out of the heart of their own greatness. Of such geniuses as Rembrandt +he says: 'Si plus tard, dans l'éloignement des siècles, ils semblent +traduire mieux que personne leur temps, c'est qu'ils l'ont recréé +d'après leur cerveau, et qu'ils l'ont imposé non pas tel qu'il était, +mais tel qu'ils l'ont déformé.'<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> But by magnifying their century, by +raising even ephemeral events of their own days into a vast perspective, +they themselves became great. While those who of set purpose diminish, +and while those by nature indifferent, are themselves diminished and +disregarded as the centuries recede, poets such as these we honour tell, +like illumined belfry clocks, the hour of the time to generations yet to +come. If the others bequeath some slight possession, a poem or so, +aphorisms, a book maybe, these survive more mightily: they survive in +some great conception, some great idea of an age, in that music of life +to which the faint-hearted and the ungifted of following epochs will +listen as it sounds from the past, because they in their turn are unable +to understand the rhythm of their own time. By this manner of inspired +vision Verhaeren has come to be the great poet of our time, by approving +of it as well as by depicting it, by the fact that he did not see the +new things as they actually are, but celebrated them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> as a new beauty. +He has approved of all that is in our epoch; of everything, to the very +resistance to it which he has conceived of as only a welcome +augmentation of the fighting force of our vitality. The whole atmosphere +of our time seems compressed in the organ music of his work; and whether +he touches the bright keys or the dark, whether he rolls out a lofty +diapason or strikes a gentle concord, it is always the onward-rushing +force of our time that vibrates in his poems. While other poets have +grown ever more lifeless and languid, ever more secluded and +disheartened, Verhaeren's voice has grown ever more resonant and +vigorous, like an organ indeed, full of reverence and the mystical power +of sublime prayer. A spirit positively religious, not of despondency, +however, but of confidence and joy, breathes from this music of his, +freshening and quickening the blood, till the world takes on brighter +and more animated and more generous colours, and our vitality, fired by +the fever of his verse, flashes with a richer and younger and more +virile flame.</p> + +<p>But the fact that life, to-day of all days, needs nothing so urgently as +the freshening and quickening of our vitality, is good reason why—quite +apart from all literary admiration—we must read his books, is good +reason why this poet must be discussed with all that glad enthusiasm +which we have first learned for our lives from his work.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h5>FOOTNOTES:</h5> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> 'Aujourd'hui'(<i>Les Héros</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Guyau, <i>L'Esthétique Contemporaine.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> 'L'Art' (<i>Les Forces Tumultueuses</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> <i>Rembrandt</i>.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="THE_NEW_BELGIUM" id="THE_NEW_BELGIUM"></a>THE NEW BELGIUM</h3> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Entre la France ardente et la grave Allemagne.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 17.5em;"><i>É.V.</i>, 'Charles le Téméraire.'</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>In Belgium the roads of Europe meet. A few hours transport one from +Brussels, the heart of its iron arteries, to Germany, France, Holland, +and England; and from Belgian ports all countries and all races are +accessible across the pathless sea. The area of the land being small, it +provides a miniature but infinitely varied synthesis of the life of +Europe. All contrasts stand face to face concisely and sharply outlined. +The train roars through the land: now past coal-mines, past furnaces and +retorts that write the fiery script of toil on an ashen sky; now through +golden fields or green pastures where sleek, brindled cows are grazing; +now through great cities that point to heaven with their multitudinous +chimneys; and lastly to the sea, the Rialto of the north, where +mountains of cargoes are shipped and unshipped, and trade traffics with +a thousand hands. Belgium is an agricultural land and an industrial +land; it is at the same time conservative and socialistic, Roman +Catholic and free-thinking; at once wealthy and wretched. There are +colossal fortunes heaped up<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> in the monster cities; and two hours thence +the bitterest poverty sweats for the dole of a living in mines and +barns. And again in the cities still greater forces wrestle with one +another: life and death, the past and the future. Towns monkishly +secluded, girt with ponderous mediæval walls, towns on whose swart and +sedgy canals lonely swans glide like milky gondolas, towns like a dream, +strengthless, prisoned in sleep eternal. At no great distance glitter +the modern residential cities; Brussels with its glaring boulevards, +where electric inscriptions dart coruscating up and down the fronts of +buildings, where motor-cars whiz along, where the streets rumble, and +modern life twitches with feverish nerves. Contrast on contrast. From +the right the Teutonic tide dashes in, the Protestant faith; from the +left, sumptuous and rigidly orthodox, Roman Catholicism. And the race +itself is the restlessly struggling product of two races, the Flemish +and the Walloon. Naked, clear, and direct are the contrasts which here +defy each other; and the whole battle can be surveyed at a glance.</p> + +<p>But so strong, so persistent is the inexorable pressure of the two +neighbouring races, that this blend has already become a new ferment, a +new race. Elements once contrary are now unrecognisably mixed in a new +and growing product. Teutons speak French, people of Romance stock are +Flemish in feeling. Pol de Mont, in spite of his Gallic name, is a +Flemish poet; Verhaeren,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> Maeterlinck, and van Lerberghe, though no +Frenchman can pronounce their names rightly, are French poets. And this +new Belgian race is a strong race, one of the most capable in Europe. +Contact with so many foreign cultures, the vicinity of such +contradictory nations, has fertilised them; healthy rural labour has +steeled their limbs; the near sea has opened their eyes to the great +distances. Their consciousness of themselves is of no long date: it can +only be reckoned from the time when their country became independent, +hardly a hundred years ago. A nation younger than America, they are in +their adolescence now, and rejoicing in their new, unsought strength. +And just as in America, the blend of races here, together with the +fruitful, healthy fields, has procreated robust men. For the Belgian +race is a race pulsing with vitality. Nowhere in Europe is life so +intensely, so merrily enjoyed as in Flanders, nowhere else is sensuality +and pleasure in excess so much the measure of strength. They must be +seen particularly in their sensual life; it must be seen how the Flemish +enjoy; with what greediness, with what a conscious pleasure and robust +endurance. It is among them that Jordaens found the models for his +gluttonous orgies; and they could be found still at every kermesse, at +every wake. Statistics prove that in the consumption of alcohol Belgium +stands to-day at the head of Europe. Every second house is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> an inn, an +<i>estaminet</i>; every town, every village has its brewery; and the brewers +are the wealthiest men in the country. Nowhere else are festivals so +loud, boisterous, and unbridled; nowhere else is life loved and lived +with such a superabundant zest and glow. Belgium is the land of +excessive vitality, and ever was so. They have fought for this plenitude +of life, for this enjoyment full to satiety. Their most heroic exploit, +their great war with the Spaniards, was only a struggle not so much for +religion as for sensual freedom. These desperate revolts, this immense +effort was in reality not directed against Roman Catholicism, but +against the morality, the asceticism it enforced; not so much against +Spain as against the sinister malignity of the Inquisition; against the +taciturn, bitter, and insidious Puritanism which sought to curtail +enjoyment; against the morose reserve of Philip II. All that they wanted +at that time was to preserve their bright and laughing life, their free, +dionysiac enjoyment, the imperious avidity of their senses; they were +determined not to be limited by any measure short of excess. And with +them life conquered. Health, strength, and fecundity is to this very day +the mark of the Belgian people in town and country. Poverty itself is +not hollow-cheeked and stunted here. Chubby, red-cheeked children play +in the streets; the peasants working in the fields are straight and +sturdy; even the artisans are as muscular<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> and strong as they are in +Constantin Meunier's bronzes; the women are moulded to bear children +easily; the unbroken vigour of the old men persists in a secure defiance +of age. Constantin Meunier was fifty when he began his life-work here; +at sixty Verhaeren is at the zenith of his creative power. Insatiable +seems the strength of this race, whose deepest feeling has been +chiselled by Verhaeren in proud stanzas:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Je suis le fils de cette race,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Dont les cerveaux plus que les dents</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sont solides et sont ardents</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Et sont voraces.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Je suis le fils de cette race</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Tenace,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Qui veut, après avoir voulu</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Encore, encore et encore plus!<a name="FNanchor_1_5" id="FNanchor_1_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_5" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>This tremendous exertion has not been in vain. To-day Belgium is +relatively the richest country in Europe. Its colony of the Congo is ten +times as extensive as the mother-land. The Belgians hardly know where to +place their capital: Belgian money is invested in Russia, in China, in +Japan; they are concerned in all enterprises; their financiers control +trusts in all countries. The middle classes, too, are healthy, strong, +and contented.</p> + +<p>Such rich and healthy blood is more likely than any other to produce +good art, and, above all, art full of the zest of life. For it is in +countries<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> with few possibilities of expansion that the desire for +artistic activity is keenest. The imagination of great nations is for +the most part absorbed by the practical demands of their development. +The best strength of a great nation is claimed by politics, by +administration, by the army and navy; but where political life is of +necessity poor, where the problems of administration are forcibly +restricted, men of genius almost exclusively seek their conquests in the +domains of art. Scandinavia is one example, Belgium another, of +countries in which the aristocracy of intellect have with the happiest +results been forced back on art and science. In such young races the +vital instinct must <i>a priori</i> make all artistic activity strong and +healthy; and even when they produce a decadence, this reaction, this +contradiction, is so decided and consequent, that strength lies in its +very weakness. For only a strong light can cast strong shadows; only a +strong, sensual race can bring forth the really great and earnest +mystics; because a decided reaction which is conscious of its aim +requires as much energy as positive creation.</p> + +<p>The towering structure of Belgian art rests on a broad foundation. The +preparation, the growing under the sod, took fifty years; and then in +another fifty years it was reared aloft by the youth of one single +generation. For every healthy evolution is slow, most of all in the +Teutonic races, which are not so quick, supple, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> dexterous as the +Latin races, who learn by life itself rather than by studious +application. This literature has grown ring by ring like a tree, with +its roots deep in a healthy soil nourished by the unyielding +perseverance of centuries. Like every confession of faith, this +literature has its saints, its martyrs, and its disciples. The first of +the creators, the forerunner, was Charles de Coster; and his great epic +<i>Thyl Ulenspiegel</i> is the gospel of this new literature. His fate is +sad, like that of all pioneers. In him the native blend of races is more +plastically visualised than in all later writers. Of Teutonic +extraction, he was born in Munich, wrote in French, and was the first +man to feel as a Belgian. He earned his living painfully as a teacher at +the Military School. And when his great romance appeared, it was +difficult to find a publisher, and still more difficult to find +appreciation, or even notice. And yet this work, with its wonderful +confrontation of Ulenspiegel as the deliverer of Flanders with Philip +II. as Antichrist, is to this day the most beautiful symbol of the +struggle of light with darkness, of vitality with renunciation; an +enduring monument in the world's literature, because it is the epic of a +whole nation. With such a work of wide import did Belgian literature +begin, a work that with its heroic battles stands like the Iliad as the +proud and primitive beginning of a more delicate, but in its advanced +culture more complex, literature. The place of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> this writer, who died +prematurely, was taken by Camille Lemonnier, who accepted the hard task +and the melancholy inheritance of pioneers—ingratitude and +disillusion. Of this proud and noble character also one must speak as of +a hero. For more than forty years he fought indefatigably for Belgium, a +soldier leading the onset from first to last, launching book after book, +creating, writing, calling to the fray and marshalling the new forces; +and never resting till the adjective 'Belgian' ceased in Paris and +Europe to be spoken with the contempt that attaches to 'provincial'; +till, like once the name of the Gueux, what was originally a disgrace +became a title of honour. Fearlessly, not to be discouraged by any +failure, this superb writer sung his native land—fields, mines, towns, +and men; the angry, fiery blood of youths and maidens; and over all the +ardent yearning for a brighter, freer, greater religion, for rapt +communion with the sublimity of Nature. With the ecstatic revelling in +colour of his illustrious ancestor Rubens, who gathered all the things +of life together in a glad festival of the senses, he, like a second +voluptuary at the feast, has lavished colours, had his joy of all that +is glowing, and glaring, and satiated, and, like every genuine artist, +conceived of art as an intensifying of life, as life in intoxication. +For more than forty years he created in this sense, and miraculously, +just like the men of his country, like the peasants<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> he painted, he +waxed in vigour from year to year, from harvest to harvest, his books +growing ever more fiery, ever more drunken with the zest and glow of +life, his faith in life ever brighter and more confident. He was the +first to feel the strength of his young country with conscious pride, +and his voice rang out its loud appeal for new fighters till he no +longer stood alone, till a company of other artists were ranged around +him. Each of these he supported and firmly established, with a strong +grip placing them at their vantage for the battle; and without envy, nay +with joy, he saw his own work triumphantly overshadowed by the acclaimed +creations of his juniors. With joy, because he probably considered not +his own novels, but this creation of a literature his greatest and most +lasting work. For it seemed as though in these years the whole land had +become alive; as though every town, every profession, every class had +sent forth a poet or a painter to immortalise them; as though this whole +Belgium were eager to be symbolised in individual phases in works of +art, until he should come who was destined to transform all towns and +classes in a poem, enshrining in it the harmonised soul of the land. Are +not the ancient Teutonic cities of Bruges, Courtrai, and Ypres +spiritualised in the stanzas of Rodenbach, in the pastels of Fernand +Khnopff, in the mystic statues of Georges Minne? Have not the sowers of +corn and the workers in mines become<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> stone in the busts of Constantin +Meunier? Does not a great drunkenness glow in Georges Eekhoud's +descriptions? The mystic art of Maeterlinck and Huysmans drinks its +deepest strength from old cloisters and <i>béguinages</i>; the sun of the +fields of Flanders glows in the pictures of Théo van Rysselberghe and +Claus. The delicate walking of maidens and the singing of belfries have +been made music in the stanzas of the gentle Charles van Lerberghe; the +vehement sensuality of a savage race has been spiritualised in the +refined eroticism of Félicien Rops. The Walloons have their +representative in Albert Mockel; and how many others might still be +named of the great creators: the sculptor van der Stappen; the painters +Heymans, Stevens; the writers des Ombiaux, Demolder, Glesener, +Crommelynck; who have all in their confident and irresistible advance +conquered the esteem of France and the admiration of Europe. For they, +and just they, were gifted with a sense of the great complex European +feeling which in their work is glimpsed in its birth and growth; for +they did not in their idea of a native land stop at the boundaries of +Belgium, but included all the neighbouring countries, because they were +at the same time patriots and cosmopolitans: Belgium was to them not +only the place where all roads meet, but also that whence all roads +start.</p> + +<p>Each of these had shaped his native land from his own angle of vision; a +whole phalanx of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> artists had added picture to picture. Till then this +great one came, Verhaeren, who saw, felt, and loved everything in +Flanders, 'toute la Flandre.' Only in his work did it become a unity; +for he has sung everything, land and sea, towns and workshops, cities +dead and cities at their birth. He has not conceived of this Flanders of +his as a separate phase, as a province, but as the heart of Europe, with +the strength of its blood pulsing inwards from outside and outside from +inwards; he has opened out horizons beyond the frontiers, and heightened +and connected them; and with the same inspiration he has molten and +welded the individual together with the whole until out of his work a +life-work grew—the lyric epic of Flanders. What de Coster half a +century before had not dared to fashion from the present, in which he +despaired of finding pride, power, and the heroism of life, Verhaeren +has realised; and thus he has become the 'carillonneur de la Flandre,' +the bell-ringer who, as in olden days from the watch-tower, has summoned +the whole land to the defence of its will to live, and the nation to the +pride and consciousness of its power.</p> + +<p>This Verhaeren could only do, because he in himself represents all the +contrasts, all the advantages of the Belgian race. He too is a ferment +of contrasts, a new man made of split and divergent forces now +victoriously harmonised. From the French he has his language and his +form;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> from the Germans his instinctive seeking of God, his earnestness, +his gravity, his need of metaphysics, and his impulse to pantheism. +Political instincts, religious instincts, Catholicism and socialism, +have struggled in him; he is at once a dweller in great cities and a +cottager in the open country; and the deepest impulse of his people, +their lack of moderation and their greed of life, is in the last +instance the maxim of his poetic art. Only that their pleasure in +intoxication has in him become joy in a noble drunkenness, in ecstasy; +only that their carnal joy has become a delight in colour; that their +mad raging is now in him a pleasure in a rhythm that roars and thunders +and bursts in foam. The deepest thing in his race, an inflexible +vitality which is not to be shaken by crises or catastrophes, has in him +become universal law, a conscious, intensified zest in life. For when a +country has become strong and rejoices in its strength, it needs, like +every plethora, a cry, an exultation. Just as Walt Whitman was the +exultation of America in its new strength, Verhaeren is the triumph of +the Belgian race, and of the European race too. For this glad confession +of life is so strong, so glowing, so virile that it cannot be thought of +as breaking forth from the heart of one individual, but is evidently the +delight of a fresh young nation in its beautiful and yet unfathomed +power.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h5>FOOTNOTES:</h5> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_5" id="Footnote_1_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_5"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> 'Ma Race' (<i>Les Forces Tumultueuses</i>).<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="YOUTH_IN_FLANDERS" id="YOUTH_IN_FLANDERS"></a>YOUTH IN FLANDERS</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Seize, dix-sept et dix-huit ans!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">O ce désir d'être avant l'âge et le vrai temps</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 12em;">Celui</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 8.5em;">Dont chacun dit</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Il boit à larges brocs et met à mal les filles!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 18em;">É.V., <i>Les Tendresses Premières</i>.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The history of modern Belgian literature begins, by a whim of chance, in +one and the same house. In Ghent, the favourite city of the Emperor +Charles V., in the old, heavy Flemish town that is still girdled with +ramparts, lies, remote from the noisy streets, the grey Jesuit college +of Sainte-Barbe. A cloister with thick, cold, frowning walls, mute +corridors, silent refectories, reminding one somewhat of the beautiful +colleges in Oxford, save that here there is no ivy softening the walls, +and no flowers to lay their variegated carpet over the green courts. +Here, in the seventies, two strange pairs of boys meet on the +school-benches; here among thousands of names are four which are +destined in later days to be the pride of their country. First, Georges +Rodenbach and Émile Verhaeren, then Maeterlinck and Charles van +Lerberghe—two pairs of friendships, both of which are now torn asunder +by death. The weaker, the more delicate of the four,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> Georges Rodenbach +and Charles van Lerberghe, have died; Emile Verhaeren and Maeterlinck, +the two heroes of Flanders, are still growing and not yet at the zenith +of their fame. But all four began their course in the old college. The +Jesuit fathers taught them their humanities, and even to write poems—in +Latin, it is true, to begin with; and in this exercise, strange to say, +Maeterlinck was excelled by van Lerberghe with his more instinctive +sense of form, and Verhaeren by the more supple Georges Rodenbach. With +rigorous earnestness the fathers trained them to respect the past, to +have faith in conventional things, to think in old grooves, and to hate +innovations. The aim was not only to keep them Catholics, but to win +them for the priesthood: these cloister walls were to protect them from +the hostile breath of the new world, from the freshening wind which, in +Flanders as everywhere else, was assailing the growing generation.</p> + +<p>But in these four pupils the aim was not realised, least of all in +Verhaeren, perhaps for the very reason that he, as the scion of a +strictly orthodox family, was the most fitted to be a priest; because +his mind did not absorb conviction mechanically, but achieved it by +vital processes; because his inmost being was self-surrender and a +glowing devotion to great ideas. However, the call of the open country, +in which he had grown up, was too strong in him; the voice of life was +too loud in his blood for so early<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> a renunciation of all; his mind was +too tameless to be satisfied with the established and the traditional. +The impressions of his childhood were more vivid than the teaching of +his masters. For Verhaeren was born in the country, at St. Amand on the +Scheldt (on the 21st of May 1855), where the landscape rolls to the vast +horizons of the heath and the sea. Here in the happiest manner kindly +circumstances wove the garland of his earlier years. His parents were +well-to-do people who had retired from the din of the town to this +little corner of Flanders; here they had a cottage of their own, with a +front garden ablaze with flowers of all colours. And immediately behind +the house began the great golden fields, the tangle of flowering +hedgerows; and close by was the river with its slow waves hasting no +longer, feeling the nearness of their goal, the infinite ocean. Of the +untrammelled days of his boyhood the ageing poet has told us in his +wonderful book <i>Les Tendresses Premières</i>. He has told us of the boy he +was when he ran across country; clambered into the corn-loft where the +glittering grain was heaped; climbed steeples; watched the peasants at +their sowing and reaping; and listened to the maids at the washing-tub +singing old Flemish songs. He watched all trades; he rummaged in every +corner. He would sit with the watch-maker, marvelling at the humming +little wheels that fashioned the hour; and no less to see the glowing +maw of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> oven in the bakery swallowing the corn which only the day +before had glided through his fingers in rustling ears, and was now +already bread, golden, warm, and odorous. At games he would watch in +astonishment the glad strength of the young fellows tumbling the reeling +skittles over; and he would wander with the playing band from village to +village, from fair to fair. And, sitting on the bank of the Scheldt, he +would watch the ships, with their coloured streamers, come and go, and +in his dreams follow them to the vast distances, which he only knew from +sailors' yarns and pictures in old books. All this, this daily physical +familiarity with the things of Nature, this lived insight into the +thousand activities of the working-day, became his inalienable +possession. Inalienable, too, was the humane feeling he acquired that he +was one at heart with the people of his village. From them he learned +the names of all these thousand things, and the intelligence of the +mysterious mechanism in all skilled handiwork, and all the petty cares +and perplexities of these many scattered little souls of life which, +combined, are the soul of a whole land. And therefore Verhaeren is the +only one among modern poets in the French tongue who is really popular +with his countrymen of all ranks. He still goes in and out among them as +their equal, sits in their circle even now, when fame has long since +shown him his place among the best and noblest, chats with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> the peasants +in the village inn, and loves to hear them discussing the weather and +the harvest and the thousand little things of their narrow world. He +belongs to them, and they belong to him. He loves their life, their +cares, their labour, loves this whole land with its tempests raging from +the north, with its hail and snow, its thundering sea and lowering +clouds. It is with pride that he claims kindred with his race and land; +and indeed there is often in his gait and in his gestures something of +the peasant trampling with heavy steps and hard knee after his plough; +and his eyes 'are grey as his native sea, his hair is yellow like the +corn of his fields.' These elemental forces are in his whole being and +production. You feel that he has never lost touch with Nature, that he +is still organically connected with the fields, the sea, the open air; +he to whom spring is physically painful, who is depressed by relaxing +air, who loves the weather of his home-land, its vehemence, and its +savage, tameless strength.</p> + +<p>For this very reason he has in later years felt, what was natively +uncongenial to him—the great cities—differently and far more intensely +than poets brought up in them. What to the latter appeared self-evident +was to him astonishment, abomination, terror, admiration, and love. For +him the atmosphere we breathe in cities was heavy, stifling, poisoned; +the streets between the massed houses were too narrow, too<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> congested; +hourly, at first in pain and then with admiration, he has felt the +beautiful fearfulness of the vast dimensions, the strangeness of the new +forms of life. Just as we walk through mountain ravines dumbfounded and +terrified by their sublimity, he has walked through streets of cities, +first slowly accustoming himself to them; thus he has explored them, +described them, celebrated them, and in the deepest sense lived them. +Their fever has streamed into his blood; their revolts have reared in +him like wild horses; their haste and unrest has whipped his nerves for +half the span of a man's life. But then he has returned home again. In +his fifties he has taken refuge once more in his fields, under the +lonely sky of Flanders. He lives in a lonely cottage somewhere in +Belgium, where the railway does not reach, enjoying himself among +cheerful and simple people who fill their days with plain labour, like +the friends and companions of his boyhood. With a joy intensified he +goes eagerly year by year to the sea, as though his lungs and his heart +needed it to breathe strongly again, to feel life with more jubilant +enthusiasm. In the man of sixty there is a wonderful return of his +healthy, happy childhood; and to the Flanders that inspired his first +verses his last have been dedicated.</p> + +<p>Against this atavism, against this bright and inalienable joy in life, +the <i>patres</i> of Sainte-Barbe could do nothing. They could only deflect +his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> great hunger of life from material things, and turn it in the +direction of science, of art. The priest they sought to make of him he +has really become, only he has preached everything that they proscribed, +and fought against everything that they praised. At the time Verhaeren +leaves school, he is already filled with that noble yet feverish greed +of life, that tameless yearning for intensive enjoyments heightened to +the degree of pain which is so characteristic of him. The priesthood was +repugnant to him. Nor was he more allured by the prospect, held out to +him, of directing his uncle's workshop. It is not yet definitely the +poetic vocation which appeals to him, but he does desire a free active +calling with unlimited possibilities. To gain time for his final +decision, he studies jurisprudence, and becomes a barrister. In these +student years in Louvain Verhaeren gave free rein to his untameable zest +in life; as a true Fleming he eschewed moderation and launched into +intemperance. To this very day he is fond of telling of his liking for. +good Belgian beer, and of how the students got drunk, danced at all the +kermesses, caroused and feasted, when the fury came over them, and got +into all kinds, of mischief, which often enough brought them into +conflict with the police. Uncertainty was never a feature of his +character, and so his Roman Catholicism was in those years no silent and +impersonal faith, but a militant orthodoxy. A handful of hotspurs—the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> +publisher Deman was one of them, and another was the tenor van Dyck—set +a newspaper going, in which they lashed away mercilessly at the +corruption of the modern world, and did not forget to blow their own +trumpets. The university was not slow to veto these immature +manifestations; but ere long they started a second periodical, which +was, however, more in harmony with the great contemporary movements. +Betweenwhiles verses were written. And still more passionate is the +young poet's activity when, in the year 1881, he is called to the bar in +Brussels. Here he makes friends with men of great vitality: he is +welcomed by a circle of painters and artists, and a cénacle of young +talents is formed who have the authentic enthusiasm for art, and who +feel that they are violently opposed to the conservative bourgeoisie of +Brussels. Verhaeren, who at this time greedily adopts all fashionable +freakishness as something new, and struts about in fantastic apparel, +promptly acquires notoriety by his vehement passionateness and his first +literary attempts. He had begun to write verse in his school-days. +Lamartine had been his model, then Victor Hugo, who bewitches young +people, that lord of magnificent gestures, that undisputed master of +words. These juvenilia of Verhaeren have never been published, and +probably they have little interest, for in them his tameless vitality +attempted expression in immaculate Alexandrines. More<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> and more, as his +artistic insight grew, he felt that his vocation was to be a poet; the +meagre success he achieved as a barrister confirmed him in this +conviction, and so in the end, following the advice of Edmond Picard, he +discarded the barrister's gown, which now seemed to him as narrow and +stifling as he had once thought the priest's cassock to be.</p> + +<p>And then came the hour, the first decisive hour. Lemonnier was as fond +of relating it as is Verhaeren; both would speak of it with their +fervent, proud joy in a friendship of over thirty years; both with +heartfelt admiration, the one for the other. Once, it was a rainy day, +Verhaeren burst in on Lemonnier, whom he did not know, trampling into +the elder man's lodging with his heavy peasant's tread, hailing him with +his hearty gesture, and blurting out: 'Je veux vous lire des vers!' It +was the manuscript of his first book <i>Les Flamandes</i>; and now he +recited, while the rain poured down outside, with his hard voice and +sharp scansion, his great enthusiasm and his compelling gestures, those +pictures, palpitating with life, of Flanders, that first free confession +of patriotism and foaming vitality. And Lemonnier encouraged him, +congratulated him, helped him, and suggested alterations, and soon the +book appeared, to the terror of Verhaeren's strictly orthodox family, to +the horror of the critics, who were helpless in the face of such an +explosion of strength. Execrated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> and lauded, it immediately compelled +interest. In Belgium, it is true, it was less acclaimed than declaimed +against; but nevertheless it everywhere excited a commotion, and that +grumbling unrest which always heralds the advent of a new force.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="LES_FLAMANDES" id="LES_FLAMANDES"></a>'LES FLAMANDES'</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Je suis le fils de cette race</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Tenace,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Qui veut, après avoir voulu</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Encore, encore et encore plus.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 15.5em;">É.V., <i>Ma Race</i>.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The life-work of great artists contains not only a single, but a +threefold work of art. The actual creation is only the first, and not +always the most important; the second must be the life of the artists +themselves; the third must be the harmoniously finished, organically +connected relationship between the act of creating and the thing +created, between poetry and life. To survey how inner growth is +connected with external formation, how crises of physical reality are +connected with artistic decadence, how development and completion +interpenetrate as much in personal experience as in the artistic +creation, must be an equal artistic rapture, must disengage as pure a +line of beauty as the individual work. In Verhaeren these conditions of +the threefold work of art are accomplished in full. Harsh and abrupt as +the contrasts in his books seem to be, the totality of his development +is yet rounded off to a clear line, to the figure of a circle. In the +beginning the end was contained, and in the end<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> the beginning: the bold +curve returns to itself. Like one who travels round the world and +circles the vast circumference of the globe, he comes back in the end to +his starting-point. Beginning and end touch in the motive of his work. +To the country to which his youth belonged his old age returns: Flanders +inspired his first book, and to Flanders his last books are dedicated.</p> + +<p>True it is, between these two books <i>Les Flamandes</i> and <i>Les Blés +Mouvants</i>, between the work of the man of five-and-twenty and that of +the man of sixty, lies the world of an evolution with, all its points of +view and achievements. Only now, when the line that was at first so +capricious has returned to itself, can its form be surveyed and its +harmony perceived. A purely external observation has become penetration: +the eye no longer exclusively regards the external phenomena of things, +but all has been seized in his soul from within and imaged in accordance +with its reality. Now nothing is seen isolated, from the point of view +of curiosity or passing interest, but everything is looked upon as +something that is, that has grown, and that is still growing. The motive +is the same in the first and in the last books; only, in the first book +we have isolated contemplation, while in the great creations of the last +period the vast horizons of the modern world are set behind the scenes, +with the shadows of the past on the one side, and, as well, with fiery +presentiments of the future<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> shedding a new light over the landscape. +The painter, who only portrayed the outer surface, the patina, has +developed into the poet, he who in a musical vibration vivifies the +psychic and the inconceivable. These two works stand in the same +relation to each other as Wagner's first operas, <i>Rienzi</i> and +<i>Tannhäuser</i>, do to his later creations, to the <i>Ring</i> and <i>Parsifal</i>: +what was at first only intuitive becomes consciously creative. And as in +Wagner's case, so too with Verhaeren there are to this very day people +who prefer the works that are still prisoned in the traditional form to +those which were created later, and who are thus, in reality, greater +strangers to the poet than those who, from principle, assume a hostile +attitude to his artistic work.</p> + +<p><i>Les Flamandes</i>, Verhaeren's first work, appeared in a period of +literary commotion. Zola's realistic novels had just become the object +of discussion; and they had stirred up, not France only, but the +adjacent countries as well. In Belgium Camille Lemonnier was the +interpreter of this new naturalism, which regarded absolute truth as +more important than beauty, and which saw the sole aim of imaginative +literature in photography, in the exact, scientifically accurate +reproduction of reality. To-day, now that excessive naturalism has been +overcome, we know that this theory only brings us half-way along the +road; that beauty may live by the side of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> truth; that on the other hand +truth is not identical with art, but that it was only necessary to +establish a transmutation of the value of beauty; that it was in the +actual, in realities, that beauty was to be sought. Every new theory, if +it is to succeed, needs a strong dose of exaggeration. And the idea of +realising reality in poetry seduced young Verhaeren into carefully +avoiding, in the description of his native province, all that is +sentimental and romantic, and deluded him with the hope of expressing in +his verse only what is coarse, primitive, and savage. Something external +and something internal, nature and intention, combined to cause this +effect. For the hatred of all that is soft and weak, rounded off and in +repose, is in Verhaeren's blood. His temperament was from the first +fiery, and loved to respond to strong provocation with a violent blow. +There was ever in him a love of the brutal, the hard, the rough, the +angular; he had always a liking for what is glaring and intensive, loud +and noisy. It is only in his latest books that, thanks to his cooler +blood, he has attained classical perfection and purity. In those days, +moreover, his hatred of sentimental idealisation, the hatred that in +Germany fulminated against Defregger's drawing-room Tyrolese, Auerbach's +scented peasants, and the spruce mythology of poetical pictures, led him +deliberately to emphasise what is brutal, unæsthetic, and, as it was +then felt, unpoetical;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> led him, as it were, to trample with heavy shoes +in the tedious footsteps of French poets. Barbarian: this was the word +they tried to kill him with, not so much on account of the harshness and +coarseness of his diction, which often reminds one of the guttural +sounds of German, as because of the savage selection of his instinct, +which always preferred what is ringingly resonant and ferociously alive, +which never fed on nectar and ambrosia, but tore red and steaming shreds +of flesh from the body of life. And genuinely barbarous, savage with +Teutonic strength, is this his inroad into French literature, reminding +one of those migrations of the Teutons into the Latin lands, where they +rushed ponderously to battle with wild and raucous cries, to learn, +after a time, a higher culture and the finer instincts of life from +those they had conquered. Verhaeren in this book does not describe what +is amiable and dreamy in Flanders, not idylls, but 'les fureurs +d'estomac, de ventre et de débauche,'<a name="FNanchor_1_6" id="FNanchor_1_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_6" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> ail the explosions of the lust +of life, the orgies of peasants, and even of the animal world. Before +him, his old schoolfellow Rodenbach had described Flanders to the French +in poems that sounded gently with a silvery note, like the peal of +belfries hovering over roofs; he had reminded them of that unforgettable +melancholy of the evening over the canals of Bruges, of the magic of the +moonlight over fields framed with dikes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> and hedges of willows. But +Verhaeren closes his ears to hints of death; he describes life at its +maddest, 'le décor monstrueux des grasses kermesses,'<a name="FNanchor_2_7" id="FNanchor_2_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_7" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> popular +festivals, in which intoxication and sensual pleasure sting the +unbridled strength of the crowd, in which the demands of the body and +the greed of money come into conflict, and the bestial nature of man +overthrows the painfully learned lessons of morality. And even in these +descriptions, which often teem with the exuberance of Rabelais, one +feels that even this explosive life is not mad enough for him, that he +yearns to intensify life out and beyond reality: 'jadis les gars avaient +les reins plus fermes et les garces plus beau téton.'<a name="FNanchor_3_8" id="FNanchor_3_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_8" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> These young +fellows are too weak for him, the wenches too gentle; he cries for the +Flanders of olden time, as it lives in the glowing pictures of Rubens +and Jordaens and Breughel. These are his true masters, they, the +revellers, who created their masterpieces between two orgies, whose +laughter and feasting ring into the motives of their pictures. Some of +the poems in <i>Les Flamandes</i> are direct imitations of certain interiors +and sensual genre-pictures: lads afire with lust forcing wenches under +the hedges; peasants in their drunken jubilation dancing round the inn +table. His desire is to sing that superabundance of vitality which +relieves itself by excess,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> excess flung into excess, even in sensual +pleasures. And his own colours and words, which are laid on with lavish +profusion and flow along in liquid fire, are themselves a debauch, a +'rut' (a favourite word of his). This vaunting display of seething +pictures is nothing less than an orgy. A terrific sensuality rages to +exhaustion as much in the execution as in the motive, a delight in these +creatures who have the madness of rutting stallions, who root about in +odorous meats and in the flowering flesh of women, who of set purpose +gorge themselves with beer and wine, and then in the dance and in +embraces discharge all the fire they have swallowed. Now and again a +reposeful picture alternates, firmly fixed in the dark frame of a +sonnet. But the hot wave streams over these breathing-spaces, and again +the mood is that of Rubens and of Jordaens, those mighty revellers.</p> + +<p>But naturalistic art is pictorial, not poetic. And it is the great +defect of this book that it was written by an inspired painter only, not +yet by a poet. The words are coloured, but they are not free; they do +not yet rock themselves in their own rhythm; they do not yet storm along +to soar aloft with the inspiration; they are wild horses regularly +trotting along in the shafts of the Alexandrine. There is a disparity +between the inner intractability and the external regularity of these +poems. The ore has not yet been molten long enough in the crucible of +life to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> burst the hereditary mould. You feel that the avidity of life +which is the substance of the work has really been seen 'à travers un +tempérament,' that here a strong personality is in revolt against all +tradition, a strong personality whose ponderous onslaught was bound to +strike terror into the cautious and the short-sighted. But the strength +and the art are not yet emancipated. Verhaeren is already a passionate +onlooker, but he is still only an onlooker, one who stands without and +not within the vortex, who watches everything with inspired sympathy, +but who has not yet experienced it. This land of Flanders has not yet +become a part of the poet's sensibility; the new point of view and the +new form for it are not yet achieved; there is yet wanting that final +smelting of the artistic excitement which is bound to burst all bonds +and restrictions, to flame along in its own free feeling in an +enraptured intoxication.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h5>FOOTNOTES:</h5> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_6" id="Footnote_1_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_6"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> 'Les Vieux Maîtres' (<i>Les Flamandes</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_7" id="Footnote_2_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_7"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> 'Les Vieux Maîtres' (<i>Les Flamandes</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_8" id="Footnote_3_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_8"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> 'Truandailles' (<i>Ibid.</i>).<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="THE_MONKS" id="THE_MONKS"></a>THE MONKS</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Moines venus vers nous des horizons gothiques,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Mais dont l'âme, mais dont l'esprit meurt de demain....</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Mes vers vous bâtiront de mystiques autels.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 19.5em;">É.V., 'Aux Moines.'</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>Rubens, that lavish reveller, is the genius of the Flemish zest in +living; but zest in living is only the temperament and not the soul of +Flanders. Before him there were the earnest masters of the cloisters, +the primitives, the van Eycks, Memling, Gerhard David, Roger van der +Weyden; and after them came Rembrandt, the meditative visionary, the +restless seeker after new values. Belgium is something else beside the +merry land of kermesses; the healthy, sensual people are not the soul of +Flanders. Glaring lights cast strong shadows. All vitality that is +strongly conscious of itself produces its counterpart, seclusion and +asceticism; it is just the healthiest, the elemental races—the Russians +of to-day for instance—who among their strong have the weak, among +their gluttons of life those who avert their faces from it, among those +who assent some who deny. By the side of the ambitious, teeming Belgium +we have spoken of, there is a sequestered Belgium which is falling into +ruins. Art exclusively in Rubens's sense could take no account of all +those solitary cities, Bruges, Ypres,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> Dixmude, through whose noiseless +streets the monks hasten like flocks of ravens in long processions, in +whose canals the dumb white shadows of gliding nuns are mirrored. There, +mid life's raging river, are broad islands of dream where men find +refuge from realities. Even in the great Belgian cities there are such +sequestered haunts of silence, the <i>béguinages,</i> those little towns in +the town, whither ageing men and women have retired, renouncing the +world for the peace of the cloister. Quite as much as the passion of +life, the Roman Catholic faith and monkish renunciation are nowhere so +deeply and firmly rooted as in this Belgium, where sensual pleasure is +so noisy in its excess. Here again an extreme of contrasts is revealed: +frowning in the face of the materialistic view of life stands the +spiritual view. While the masses in the exuberance of their health and +strength proclaim life aloud and pounce on its eternal pleasures, aside +and cut off from them stand another, far lesser company to whom life is +only a waiting for death, whose silence is as persistent as the +exultation of the others. Everywhere here austere faith has its black +roots in the vigorous, fruitful soil. For religious feeling always +remains alive among a people that has once, although centuries may have +passed since, fought with every fibre of its being for its faith. This +is a subterranean Belgium that works in secret and that easily escapes +the cursory glance, for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> it lives in shadows and silence. From this +silence, however, from this averted earnestness, Belgian art has derived +that mystical nourishment which has lent its baffling strength to the +works of Maeterlinck, the pictures of Fernand Khnopff and Georges Minne. +Verhaeren, too, did not turn aside from this sombre region. He, as the +painter of Belgian life, saw these shadows of a vanishing past, and, in +1886, added to his first book <i>Les Flamandes</i> a second, <i>Les Moines</i>. It +almost seems as though he had first of all been obliged to exhaust both +the historical styles of his native land before he could reach his own, +the modern style. For this book is essentially a throw-back, a +confession of faith in Gothic art.</p> + +<p>Monks are for Verhaeren heroic symbols of I mighty periods in the past. +In his boyhood he was familiar with their grave aspect. Near the +cheerful house where his youth was passed, there was at Bornhem a +Bernhardine monastery, whither the boy had often accompanied his father +to confession, and in whose cold corridors he had often waited in +astonishment and with a child's timidity, listening to the majestic +chant of the liturgy married to the organ's earnest notes. And here, one +day of days, he received, with a thrill of pious terror, his first +communion. Since that day the monks had been to him, as he trod the +beaten track of custom, beings in a strange world apart, the incarnation +of the beautiful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> and the supersensual, the unearthly on his child's +earth. And when, in the course of years, he sought to create in verse a +vision of Flanders in all her luminous and burning colours, he could not +forgo this mysterious chiaroscuro, this earnest tone. For three weeks he +withdrew to the hospitable monastery of Forges, near Chimay, taking part +in all the ceremonies and rites of the monks, who, in the hope of +winning a priest, afforded him full insight into their life. But +Verhaeren's attitude towards Roman Catholicism was by this time anything +but religious, it was rather an æsthetic and poetic admiration for the +noble romanticism of the ceremonial, a moral piety for the things of the +past. He remained three weeks. Then he fled, oppressed by the nightmare +of the ponderous walls, and, as a souvenir for himself, chiselled the +image of the monastery in verse.</p> + +<p>This book too, no doubt, had no other aim than to be pictorial, +descriptive. In rounded sonnets, as though etched by Rembrandt's needle, +he fixed the chiaroscuro of the cloister's corridors, the hours of +prayer, the earnest meetings of the monks, the silence in the intervals +of the liturgy. The evenings over the landscape were described, in a +ritual language, with the images of faith: the sun as it sets in crimson +flaming like the wine in the chalice; steeples like luminous crosses in +a silent sky; the rustling corn bowing when the bell rings to evensong.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> +The poetry of devotion and repose was here revived: the harmony of the +organ; the beauty of corridors garlanded with ivy; the touching idyll of +the lonely cemetery; the peaceful dying of the prior; the visiting of +the sick, and the I comfort it brings. Nothing was allowed in the deep +light of the colours, in the grave repose of the theme, save what could +be fitted into the strictly religious frame of the picture.</p> + +<p>But here the pictorial method proved to be I insufficient for the poetic +effect. The problem of religious feeling is too close to the heart to be +reached by outward, even by plastic manifestations. A thing which is so +eminently hostile to the sensuous, nay, which is the very symbol of I +all that is contrary to sensuousness, cannot be reached by a picturesque +appeal to the senses; the description of an intellectual problem must +cease to be descriptive and become psychology. And so, thus early in his +career, Verhaeren is forced away from the picturesque. First, however, +he attempts the plastic method: he gives us sombre statues of monks; but +even as statues they are only types of an inner life, symbols of the +ways to God. Verhaeren develops in his monks the difference of their +characters, which are still effective even under the soutane; and by his +delicate characterisation he shows the I manifold possibilities of +religious feeling. The I feudal monk, a noble of ancient lineage, would +make a conquest of God, as once his ancestors<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> conquered castle and +forest lands with spur and sword. The <i>moine flambeau</i>, he that is +burning with fervour, would possess Him with his passion like a woman. +The savage monk, he that has come from the heart of a forest, can only +comprehend Him in heathen wise, only fear Him as the wielder of thunder +and lightning, while the gentle monk, he that loves the Virgin with a +troubadour's timid tenderness, flees from the fear of Him. One monk +would fathom Him by the learning of books and by logic; another does not +understand Him, cannot lay hold on Him, and yet finds Him everywhere, in +all things, in all he experiences. Thus all the characters of life, the +harshest contrasts, are jostled together, quelled only by the monastery +rules. But they are only in juxtaposition, just as the painter loves all +his colours and things equally, just as he places things in +juxtaposition, without estimating them according to their value. So far +there is nothing that binds them together inwardly, there is no conflict +of forces, no great idea. Neither are the verses as yet free; they too +have the effect of being bound by the strict discipline of the monks. +'Il s'environne d'une sorte de froide lumière parnassienne qui en fait +une Å“uvre plus anonyme, malgré la marque du poète poinçonnée à +maintes places sur le métal poli,'<a name="FNanchor_1_9" id="FNanchor_1_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_9" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> says Albert Mockel, the most +subtle of æsthetic critics, of the book. Verhaeren must himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> have +felt this insufficiency, for, conscious of not having solved his +problems in terms of poetry, he has remoulded both aspects of the +country, renewed both books in another form after many years: <i>Les +Moines</i> in the tragedy <i>Le Cloître, Les Flamandes</i> in the great +pentalogy <i>Toute la Flandre.</i></p> + +<p><i>Les Moines</i> was the last of Verhaeren's descriptive books, the last in +which he stood on the outer side of things contemplating them +dispassionately. But already here there is too much temperament in him +to allow him to look at things as altogether unconnected and +undisciplined; the joy of magnifying and intensifying by feeling already +stirs in him. At the end of the book he no longer sees the monks as +isolated individuals, but gathers them all together in a great synthesis +in his finale. Behind them the poet sees order, a secret law, a great +force of life. They, these hermits who have renounced, who are scattered +over the world in a thousand monasteries, are to the poet the last +remnants of a great (departed beauty, and they are so much the more +grandiose as they have lost all feeling for our own time. They are the +last ruins of moribund Christianity in a new world, projecting, in +tragic loneliness, into our own days. 'Seuls vous survivez grands au +monde chrétien mort!'<a name="FNanchor_2_10" id="FNanchor_2_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_10" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> he hails them in admiration, for they have +built the great House of God, and for many generations sacrificed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> their +blood for the Host eternally white. In admiration he hails them. Not in +faith and love, but in admiration for their fearless energy, and above +all because they go on fighting undaunted for something that is dead and +lost; because their beauty serves none other than itself; because they +project into our own time like the ancient belfries of the land, which +no longer call to prayer. In a land where everything else serves a +purpose, pleasure and gold, they stand lonely; and they die without a +cry and without a moan, fighting against an invisible enemy, they, the +last defenders of beauty. For at that time, at that early stage of his +career, beauty for Verhaeren was still identical with the past, because +he had not yet discovered beauty for himself in the new things; in the +monks he celebrates the last romanticists, because he had not yet found +poetry in the things of reality, not yet found the new romance, the +heroism of the working-day. He loves the monks as great dreamers, as the +<i>chercheurs de chimères sublimes</i>, but he cannot help them, cannot +defend what they possess, for behind them already stand their heirs. +These heirs are the poets—a curious echo of David Strauss's idea about +religion—who will have to be, what religion with its faithful was to +the past, the guardians and eternal promoters of beauty. They it will +be—here rings strangely the deepest intention of Verhaeren's later +work—who will wave their new faith over the world like a banner, they,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> +'les poètes venus trop tard pour être prêtres,'<a name="FNanchor_3_11" id="FNanchor_3_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_11" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> who shall be the +priests of a new fervour. All religions, all dogmas, are brittle and +transitory, Christ dies as Pan dies; and even this poetic faith, the +last and highest conquest of the mind, must in its time pass away.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Car il ne reste rien que l'art sur cette terre</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Pour tenter un cerveau puissant et solitaire</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et le griser de rouge et tonique liqueur.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>In this great hymn to the future Verhaeren first turns away from the +past and seeks the path to the future. For the poetic idea is here +understood with new and greater feelings than in the beginning of his +career. Poetry is for Verhaeren a confession not only as applied to an +individual in Goethe's phrase, but in a religious sense as well: as the +highest moral confession.</p> + +<p>Much as these two books are marked by the effort to describe Flanders as +it actually is, stronger than this effort is the yearning at the heart +of them to escape from the present to the past. Every temperament +exceeds reality. Flanders was here described in the sense of an ideal; +but the ideal in both cases was projected on the past. Beauty young +Verhaeren had sought in the monks, the symbols of the past; strength and +the fire of life he had sought in the old Flemish masters. He still +needed the costume of the past to discover the heroic and the beautiful +in the present, just like many of our<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> poets, who, when they would paint +strong men, must perforce place their dramas in the Florentine +renaissance, and who, if they would fashion beauty, deck their +characters with Greek costumes. To find strength and beauty, or in one +word poetry, in the real things that surround us, is here still denied +to Verhaeren; and therefore he has disowned his second book as well as +his first. In the distance between the old and the new works the long +road may be seen, and seen with pride, which leads from the traditional +poet to the truly contemporary poet.</p> + +<p>Though not yet divided with a master hand, though not yet in the light +of reality, the inner contrast of the country, the conflict between body +and soul, between the joy of life and the longing for death, between +pleasure and renunciation, the alternative between 'yes' and 'no,' was +yet already contained in the contrast of these two books. And in a +really emotional poet this contrast could not remain one that was purely +external; it was bound to condense to an inner problem, to a personal +decision between past and present. Two conceptions of the world, both +inherited and in the blood, have here attained consciousness in one man; +and though in life they may act independently in juxtaposition, in the +individual the conflict must be fought out, the victory of the one or +the other must be decided by force, or else by something higher, by an +internal reconciliation. This conflict for a conception of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> the world +pierces through the constant contrast between the acceptance and the +denial of life in the poet, a conflict that for ten long years +undermined his artistic and human experiences with terrific crises, and +brought him to the verge of annihilation. The hostility which divides +his ' country into two camps seems to have taken refuge in his soul to +fight it out in a desperate and mortal duel: past and future seem to be +fighting for a new synthesis. But only from such crises, from such +pitiless struggles with the forces of one's own soul, do the vast +conceptions of the universe and their new creative reconciliation grow.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h5>FOOTNOTES:</h5> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_9" id="Footnote_1_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_9"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Albert Mockel, <i>Émile Verhaeren</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_10" id="Footnote_2_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_10"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> 'Aux Moines.'</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_11" id="Footnote_3_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_11"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> 'Aux Moines.'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="THE_BREAK-DOWN" id="THE_BREAK-DOWN"></a>THE BREAK-DOWN</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Nous sommes tous des Christs qui embrassons nos croix.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 22.5em;">É. V.,'La Joie,'</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Every feeling, every sensation is, in the last instance, the +transformation of pain. Everything that in vibration or by contact +touches the epithelium affects it as pain. As pain, which then, by the +secret chemistry of the nerves, transmitted from centre to centre, is +transformed into impressions, colours, sounds, and conceptions. The +poet, whose last secret really is that he is more sensitive than others, +that he purifies these pains of contact into feeling with a still more +delicate filter, must have finer nerves than anybody else. Where others +only receive a vague impression, he must have a clear perception, to +which his feeling must respond, and the value of which he must be able +to estimate. In Verhaeren's very first books a particular kind of +reaction to every incitement was perceptible. His feeling really +responds only to strong, intensive, sharp irritation; its delicacy was +not abnormal, only the energy of the reaction was remarkable. His first +artistic incitement; however, that of Flemish landscapes, was only one +of the retina, glaring colours, pictorial charm;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> only in <i>Les Moines</i> +had for the first time more delicate psychic shades been crystallised. +In the meantime a transformation had taken place in his exterior life. +Verhaeren had turned aside from the contemplation of Nature to +concentrate his strength on the cultivation of his mind. He had +travelled extensively, had been in Paris and London, in Spain and +Germany; with impetuous haste he had assimilated all great ideas, all +new phases, all the manifold theories of existence. Without a pause, +incessantly, experiences assail him and tire him out. A thousand +impressions accost him, each demanding an answer; great, sombre cities +discharge their electric fire upon him, and fill his nerves with leaping +flame. The sky above him is obscured by the clouds of cities; in London +he wanders about as though wildered in a forest. This grey, misty city, +that seems as though it were built of steel, casts its whole melancholy +over the soul of him who lives there in loneliness, ignorant of the +language, and who is so much the more lonely, as all these +manifestations of the new life in great cities are still unintelligible +to him. He is still unable to capture the poetry that is in them, and so +they leap at him and penetrate him with a confused, unintelligible pain. +And in this novel atmosphere the intense refinement of his nerves +proceeds at such a pace that already the slightest contact with the +outer world produces a quivering reaction. Every noise, every colour, +every thought<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> presses in upon him as though with sharp needles; his +healthy sensibility becomes hypertrophied; that fineness of hearing, of +which one is conscious, say in sea-sickness, which perceives every +noise, even the slightest sound, as though it were the blow of a hammer, +undermines his whole organism; every rapidly-passing smell corrodes him +like an acid; every ray of light pricks him like a red-hot needle. The +process is aggravated by a purely physical illness, which corresponds to +his psychic ailment. Just at that time Verhaeren was attacked by a +nervous affection of the stomach, one of those repercussions of the +psychic on the physical system in which it is hard to say whether the +ailing stomach causes the neurasthenic condition, or the weakness of the +nerves the stagnation of the digestive functions. Both ailments are +inwardly co-ordinated, both are a rejection of the outer impression, an +impotent refusal of the chemical conversion. Just as the stomach feels +all food as pain, as a foreign body, so the ear repels every sound as an +intrusion, so the eye rejects every impression as pain. This nervous +rejection of the outer world was already then, in Verhaeren's life, +pathological. The bell on the door had to be removed, because it shocked +his nerves; those who lived in the house had to wear felt slippers +instead of shoes; the windows were closed to the noise of the street. +These years in Verhaeren's life are the lowest depth, the crisis of his +vitality. It is in such periods of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> depression that invalids shut +themselves off from the world, from their fellow-men, from the light of +day, from the din of existence, from books, from all contact with the +outer world, because they instinctively feel that everything can be a +renewal of their pain, and nothing an enrichment of their life. They +seek to soften the world, to tone its colours down; they bury themselves +in the monotony of solitude. This 'soudaine lassitude'<a name="FNanchor_1_12" id="FNanchor_1_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_12" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> then impinges +on to the moral nature; the will, losing the sense of life, is +paralysed; all standards of value collapse; ideals founder in the most +frightful Nihilism. The earth becomes a chaos, the sky an empty space; +everything is reduced to nothingness, to an absolute negation. Such +crises in the life of a poet are almost always sterile. And it is +therefore of incalculable value that here a poet should have observed +himself and given us a clear picture of himself in this state, that, +without fear of the ugliness, the confusion of his ego, he should have +described, in terms of art, the history of a psychic crisis. In +Verhaeren's trilogy, <i>Les Soirs, Les Débâcles, Les Flambeaux Noirs</i>, we +have a document that must be priceless to pathologists as to +psychologists. For here a deep-seated will to extract the last +consequence from every phase of life has reproduced the stadium of a +mental illness right to the verge of madness; here a poet has with the +persistence of a physician pursued<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> the symptoms of his suffering +through every stage of lacerating pain, and immortalised in poems the +process of the inflammation of his nerves.</p> + +<p>The landscape of this book is no longer that of his native province; +indeed, it can hardly be called one of earth. It is a grandiose +landscape of dreams, horizons as though on some other planet, as though +in one of those worlds which have cooled into moons, where the warmth of +the earth has died out and an icy calm chills the vast far-seen spaces +deserted of man. Already in the book of the monks, Rubens's merry +landscape had been clouded over; and in the next, <i>Au Bord de la Route</i>, +the grey hand of a cloud had eclipsed the sun. But here all the colours +of life are burnt out, not a star shines down from this steel-grey +metallic sky; only a cruel, freezing moon glides across it from time to +time like a sardonic smile. These are books of pallid nights, with the +immense wings of clouds closing the sky, over a narrowed world, in which +the hours cling to things like heavy and clammy chains. They are works +filled with a glacial cold. 'Il gèle ...'<a name="FNanchor_2_13" id="FNanchor_2_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_13" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> one poem begins, and this +shuddering tone pierces like the howling of dogs ever and ever again +over an illimitable plain. The sun is dead, dead are the flowers, the +trees; the very marshes are frozen in these white midnights:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et la crainte saisit d'un immortel hiver</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et d'un grand Dieu soudain, glacial et splendide.<a name="FNanchor_3_14" id="FNanchor_3_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_14" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p> + +<p>In his fever the poet is for ever dreaming of this cold, as though in a +secret yearning for its cooling breath. No one speaks to him, only the +winds howl senselessly through the streets like dogs round a house. +Often dreams come, but they are <i>fleurs du mal</i>; they dart out of the +ice burning, yellow, poisonous. More and more monotonous grow the days, +more and more fearful; they fall down like drops, heavy and black.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Mes jours toujours plus lourds s'en vont roulant leur cours!<a name="FNanchor_4_15" id="FNanchor_4_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_15" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>In thought and sound these verses express ail the frightful horror of +this desolation. Impotently the ticking of the clock hammers this +endless void, and measures a barren time. Darker, and darker grows the +world, more and more oppressive; the concave mirror of solitude distorts +the poet's dreams into frightful grimaces, and spirits whisper evil +thoughts in his restless heart.</p> + +<p>And like a fog, like a heavy, stifling cloud, fatigue sinks down on his +soul. First pleasure in things had died, and then the very will to +pleasure. The soul craves nothing now. The nerves have withdrawn their +antennæ from the outer world; they are afraid of every impression; they +are spent. Whatever chances to drift against them no longer becomes +colour, sound, impression; the senses are too feeble for the chemical +conversion of impressions: and so everything remains at the stage of +pain, a dull, gnawing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> pain. Feeling, which the nerves are now powerless +to feed, starves; desire is sunk in sleep. Autumn has come; all the +flowers have withered; and winter comes apace.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Il fait novembre en mon âme.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et c'est le vent du nord qui clame</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Comme une bête dans mon âme.<a name="FNanchor_5_16" id="FNanchor_5_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_16" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Slowly, but irresistible as a swelling tide, emerges an evil thought: +the idea of the senselessness of life, the thought of death. As the last +of yearnings soars up the prayer:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Mourir! comme des fleurs trop énormes, mourir!<a name="FNanchor_6_17" id="FNanchor_6_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_17" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>For the poet's whole body is, as it were, sore from this contact with +the outer world, from these little gnawing pains. Not a single great +feeling can stand erect: everything is eaten away by this little, +gnawing, twitching pain. But now the man in his torture springs up, as a +beast, tormented by the stings of insects, tears its chains asunder and +rushes madly and blindly along. The patient would fain flee from his bed +of torture, but he cannot retrace his steps. No man can 'se recommencer +enfant, avec calcul.'<a name="FNanchor_7_18" id="FNanchor_7_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_18" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> Travels, dreams, do nothing but deaden the +pain; and then the torment of the awakening sets in again with redoubled +strength. Only one way is open: the road which leads forward, the road +to annihilation. Out of a thousand petty pains, the will longs for one +single pain that shall<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> end all: the body that is being burnt piecemeal +cries for the lightning. The sick man desires—as fever-patients will +tear their wounds open—to make this pain, which tortures without +destroying, so great and murderous that it will kill outright: to save +his pride, he would fain be himself the cause of his destruction. Pain, +he says to himself, shall not continue to be a series of pin-pricks; he +refuses to 'pourrir, immensément emmailloté d'ennui';<a name="FNanchor_8_19" id="FNanchor_8_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_19" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> he asks to be +destroyed by a vast, fiery, savage pain; he demands a beautiful and +tragic death. <i>The will to experience becomes here the will to suffer +pain</i> and even death. He will be glad to suffer any torture, but not +this one low little thing; he can no longer endure to feel himself so +contemptible, so wretched.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">N'entendre plus se taire, en sa maison d'ébène,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Qu'un silence total dont auraient peur les morts.<a name="FNanchor_9_20" id="FNanchor_9_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_20" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>And with a flagellant's pleasure the patient nurses this fire of fever, +till it flames up in a bright blaze. The deepest secret of Verhaeren's +art was from the first his joy in intemperance, the strength of his +exaggeration. And so, too, he snatches up this pain, this neurasthenia +to a wonderful, fiery, and grandiose ecstasy. A cry, a pleasure breaks +out of this idea of liberation. For the first time the word 'joy' blazes +again in the cry:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Le joie enfin me vient, de souffrir par moi-même,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Parce que je le veux.<a name="FNanchor_10_21" id="FNanchor_10_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_21" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p> + +<p>True, only a perverse joy, a sophism, the false triumph over life of the +suicide, who believes he has conquered fate when, truth to tell, it has +conquered him. But this self-deception is already sublime.</p> + +<p>By this sudden interference of the will the physical torture of the +nerves becomes a psychic event; the illness of the body encroaches upon +the intellect; the neurasthenia becomes a 'déformation morale'; the +suffering schism of the poet's ego is of itself subdivided, so to speak, +into two elements, one that excites pain and one that suffers pain. The +psychic would fain tear itself free from the physical, the soul would +fain withdraw from the tortured body:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Pour s'en aller vers les lointains et se défaire</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">De soi et des autres, un jour,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">En un voyage ardent et mol comme l'amour</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et légendaire ainsi qu'un départ de galère!<a name="FNanchor_11_22" id="FNanchor_11_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_22" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>But the two are relentlessly bound up with each other, no flight is +possible, however much disgust drives the poet to rescue at least a part +of himself by snatching it into a purer, calmer, and higher state. +Never, I believe, has the aversion of a sick man to himself, the will to +health of a living man, been more cruel and more grandiose than in this +book of a poet's diabolical revolt against himself. His suffering soul +is torn into two parts. In a fearful personification the hangman and the +condemned criminal wrestle<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> for the mastery. 'Se cravacher dans sa +pensée et dans son sang!'<a name="FNanchor_12_23" id="FNanchor_12_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_23" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> and finally, in a paroxysm of fury, 'me +cracher moi-même,'<a name="FNanchor_13_24" id="FNanchor_13_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_24" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> these are the horribly shrilling cries of +self-hatred and self-disgust. With all the strings of her whipped +strength the soul tears to free herself from the rotting and tormented +body, and her deepest torture is that this separation is impossible. In +this distraction flickers already the first flame of madness.</p> + +<p>Never—if we except Dostoieffsky—has a poet's scalpel probed the wound +of his ego so cruelly and so deeply, never has it gone so dangerously +near to the nerve of life. And never perhaps, except in Nietzsche's +<i>Ecce Homo!</i> has a poet stepped so close to the edge of the precipice +that juts above the abyss of existence, with so clear a consciousness of +its vicinity, to feast on the feeling of dizziness and on the danger of +death. The fire in Verhaeren's nerves has slowly inflamed his brain. But +the other being, the poet in him, had remained watchful, observing the +eye of madness slowly, inevitably, and as though magnetically attracted, +coming nearer and nearer. 'L'absurdité grandit en moi comme une fleur +fatale.'<a name="FNanchor_14_25" id="FNanchor_14_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_25" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> In gentle fear, but at the same time with a secret +voluptuous pleasure, he felt the dreaded thing approaching. For long +already he had been conscious that this rending of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> himself had hunted +his thinking from the circle of clarity. And in one grandiose poem, in +which he sees the corpse of his reason floating down the grey Thames, +the sick man describes that tragic foundering:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Elle est morte de trop savoir,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">De trop vouloir sculpter la cause,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">————————————————-</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Elle est morte, atrocement,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">D'un savant empoisonnement,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Elle est morte aussi d'un délire</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Vers un absurde et rouge empire.<a name="FNanchor_15_26" id="FNanchor_15_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_26" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>But no fear takes him at this thought. Verhaeren is a poet who loves +paroxysm. And just as in his physical illness he had called out in the +deepest joy for the intoxication of illness, for its exasperation, for +death, so now his psychic illness demands its intoxication, the +dissolution of all order, its most glorious foundering: madness. Here, +too, the pleasure in the quest of pain is intensified to the highest +superlative, to a voluptuous joy in self-destruction. And as sick men +amid their torments scream of a sudden for death, this tortured man +screams in grim yearning for madness:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Aurai-je enfin l'atroce joie</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">De voir, nerfs par nerfs, comme une proie,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">La démence attaquer mon cerveau?<a name="FNanchor_16_27" id="FNanchor_16_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_27" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>He has measured all the deeps of the spirit, but all the words of +religion and science, all the elixirs<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> of life, have been powerless to +save him from this torment. He knows all sensations, and there was no +greatness in any of them; all have goaded him, none have exalted him or +raised him above himself. And now his heart yearns ardently for this +last sensation of all. He is tired of waiting for it, he will go out to +meet it: 'Je veux marcher vers la folie et ses soleils.'<a name="FNanchor_17_28" id="FNanchor_17_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_28" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> He hails +madness as though it were a saint, as though it were his saviour; he +forces himself to 'croire à la démence ainsi qu'en une foi.'<a name="FNanchor_18_29" id="FNanchor_18_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_29" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> It is a +magnificent picture reminding one of the legend of Hercules, who, +tortured by the fiery robe of Nessus, hurls himself on the pyre to be +consumed by one great flame instead of being wretchedly burnt to death +by a thousand slow and petty torments.</p> + +<p>Here the highest state of despair is reached; the black banner of death +and the red one of madness are furled together. With unprecedented logic +Verhaeren, despairing of an interpretation of life, has exalted +senselessness as the sense of the universe. But it is just in this +complete inversion that victory already lies. Johannes Schlaf, in his +masterly study, has with great eloquence demonstrated that it is just at +the moment when the sick man cries out like one being crucified, 'Je +suis l'immensément perdu,'<a name="FNanchor_19_30" id="FNanchor_19_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_30" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> just when he feels he is being drawn into +the bosom of the infinite, that he is redeemed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> and delivered. Just this +idea, which here had whipped the little pain to the verge of madness,</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">À chaque heure, violenter sa maladie;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">L'aimer, et la maudire,<a name="FNanchor_20_31" id="FNanchor_20_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_31" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>is already the deepest leitmotiv of Verhaeren's work, the key to unlock +the gates of it. For the idea is nothing else than the idea of his life, +to master all resistance by a boundless love, 'aimer le sort jusqu'en +ses rages';<a name="FNanchor_21_32" id="FNanchor_21_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_32" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> never to shun a thing, but to take everything and +enhance it till it becomes creative, ecstatic pleasure; to welcome every +suffering with fresh readiness. Even this cry for madness, no doubt the +extreme document of human despair, is an immense yearning for clearness; +in this tortured disgust with illness cries a joy in life perhaps else +unknown in our days; and the whole conflict, which seems to be a flight +from life, is in the last instance an immense heroism for which there is +no name. Nietzsche's great saying is here fulfilled: 'For a dionysiac +task a hammer's hardness, <i>the pleasure in destruction itself</i>, is most +decidedly one of the preliminary conditions.'<a name="FNanchor_22_33" id="FNanchor_22_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_33" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> And what at this +period of Verhaeren's work appears still to be negative is in the higher +sense a preparation for the positive, for the decisive consummation, of +the later books.</p> + +<p>For that reason this crisis and the shaping of it in verse remain an +imperishable monument<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> of our contemporary literature, for it is at the +same time an eternal monument to the conquest of human suffering by the +power of art. Verhaeren's crisis—his exposition, for the sake of the +value of life, of his inward struggle—has gone deeper than that of any +other poet of our time. To this very day the sufferings of that time are +graven, as though by iron wedges, in the furrows of his lofty brow; the +recovery of his health and his subsequent robustness have been powerless +to efface them. This crisis was a fire without parallel, a flame of +passion. Not a single acquisition from the earlier days was rescued from +it. Verhaeren's whole former relation to the world has broken down: his +Catholic faith, his religion, his feeling for his native province, for +the world, for life itself, all is destroyed. And when he builds up his +work now, it must perforce be an entirely different one, with a +different artistic expression, with different feelings, different +knowledge, and different harmonies. This tempest has changed the +landscape of his soul, where once the peace of a modest existence had +prevailed, into a pathless desert. But this desert with its solitude has +space and liberty for the building up of a new, a richer, an infinitely +nobler world.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h5>FOOTNOTES:</h5> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_12" id="Footnote_1_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_12"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> 'L'Heure Mauvaise' (<i>Au Bord de la Route</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_13" id="Footnote_2_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_13"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> 'La Barque' (<i>Au Bord de la Route</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_14" id="Footnote_3_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_14"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> 'Le Gel' (<i>Les Soirs</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_15" id="Footnote_4_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_15"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> 'L'Heure Mauvaise' (<i>Au Bord de la Route</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_16" id="Footnote_5_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_16"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> 'Vers' (<i>Au Bord de la Route</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_17" id="Footnote_6_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_17"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> 'Mourir' (<i>Les Soirs</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_18" id="Footnote_7_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_18"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> 'S'amoindrir' (<i>Les Débâcles</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_19" id="Footnote_8_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_19"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> 'Si Morne' (<i>Les Débâcles</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_20" id="Footnote_9_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_20"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> 'Le Roc' (<i>Les Flambeaux Noirs</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_21" id="Footnote_10_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_21"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> 'Insatiablement' (<i>Les Soirs</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_22" id="Footnote_11_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_22"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> 'Là -bas' (<i>Au Bord de la Route</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_23" id="Footnote_12_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_23"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> 'Vers le Cloître' (<i>Les Débâcles</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_24" id="Footnote_13_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_24"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> 'Un Soir' (<i>Au Bord de la Route</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_25" id="Footnote_14_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_25"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> 'Fleur Fatale' (<i>Les Débâcles</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_26" id="Footnote_15_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_26"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> 'La Morte' (<i>Les Flambeaux Noirs</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_27" id="Footnote_16_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_27"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> 'Le Roc' (<i>Ibid.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_28" id="Footnote_17_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_28"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> 'Fleur Fatale' (<i>Les Débâcles</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_29" id="Footnote_18_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_29"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> 'Le Roc' (<i>Les Flambeaux Noirs</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_30" id="Footnote_19_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_30"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> 'Les Nombres' (<i>Ibid.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_31" id="Footnote_20_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_31"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> 'Celui de la Fatigue' (<i>Les Apparus dans mes Chemins</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_32" id="Footnote_21_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_32"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> 'La Joie' (<i>Les Visages de la Vie</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_33" id="Footnote_22_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_33"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> <i>Ecce Homo!</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="FLIGHT_INTO_THE_WORLD" id="FLIGHT_INTO_THE_WORLD"></a>FLIGHT INTO THE WORLD</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">On boit sa soif, on mange sa faim.—É.V., 'L'Amour.'</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>In this crisis the negation was driven to the last possible limits. The +sick man had denied not only the outer world, but himself as well. +Nothing had remained but vexation, disgust, and torment.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">La vie en lui ne se prouvait</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Que par l'horreur qu'il en avait.<a name="FNanchor_1_34" id="FNanchor_1_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_34" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>He had arrived at the last possibility, at that possibility which means +destruction or transformation. The at first purely physical pain of the +supersensitive organs of the senses had become a moral depression; the +depression had become psychic suffering; and this again had gradually +turned in a grandiose progression not only to pain in the individual +thing but to suffering in the all: to <i>cosmic pain</i>. For Him, however, +who in His loneliness took the suffering of the whole world upon His +shoulders, who was strong enough to bear it for all the centuries, +humanity has invented the symbol of 'God.' He who is born of earth and +lives to die must perforce break down under so gigantic a burden. Into +the last corner<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> of his ego revengeful life had here driven the man who +denied it, had driven him to the point where now he stood shivering +before the abyss in his own breast, face to face with death and madness. +The physical and poetic organism of Verhaeren was overheated to the most +dangerous and extreme degree. This fever-heat—that of a flagellant +—had brought his blood to the boiling-point; it was filling the chamber +of his breast with pictures of such overwhelming horror that the +explosion of self-destruction could only be prevented by opening the +valve.</p> + +<p>There were only two means of flight from this destruction: flight into +the past—or flight into a new world. Many, Verlaine for instance, had +in such catastrophes, wherein the whole structure of their lives tumbled +to the ground, fled into the cathedrals of Catholicism rather than stand +in solitude under the threatening sky. Verhaeren, however, though an +inspired faith is one of the most living sources of his poetical power, +was more afraid of the past than of the Unknown. <i>He freed himself from +the immense pressure upon him by fleeing into the world</i>. He who in his +pride had conceived the whole process of the world as a personal affair, +he who had tried to solve the eternal discord, the undying 'yes' and +'no' of life in his own lonely self, now rushes into the very midst of +things and involves himself in their process. He who previously had felt +everything only subjectively, only in isolation, now objectifies<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> +himself; he who previously had shut himself off from reality, now lets +his veins pulse in harmony with the breathing organism of life. He +relinquishes his attitude of pride; he surrenders himself; lavishes +himself joyously on everything; exchanges the pride of being alone for +the immense pleasure of being everywhere. <i>He no longer looks at all +things in himself, but at himself in all things</i>. But the poet in him +frees himself, quite in Goethe's sense, by symbols. Verhaeren drives his +superabundance out of himself into the whole world, just as Christ in +the legend drove the devils out of the madman into the swine. The heat, +the fever of his feeling—which, concentrated in his too narrow chest, +were near bursting it—now animate with their fire the whole world +around him, which of old had been to him congealed with ice. All the +evil powers, which had slunk around him in the trappings of nightmares, +he now transforms to shapes of life. He hammers away at them and shapes +them anew; he is himself the smith of that noble poem of his, the smith +of whom he says:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Dans son brasier, il a jeté</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Les cris d'opiniâtreté,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">La rage sourde et séculaire;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Dans son brasier d'or exalté,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Maître de soi, il a jeté</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Révoltes, deuils, violences, colères,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Pour leur donner la trempe et la clarté</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Du fer et de l'éclair.<a name="FNanchor_2_35" id="FNanchor_2_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_35" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p> + +<p>He objectifies his personality in the work of art, hammering out of the +cold blocks, that weighed upon him with the weight of iron, monuments +and statues of pain. All the feelings which of old weighed down upon him +like dull fog, formless and prisoned in dream like nightmares, now +become clear statues, symbols in stone of his soul's experiences. The +poet has torn his fear, his burning, moaning, horrible fear, out of +himself, and poured it into his bell-ringer, who is consumed in his +blazing belfry. He has turned the monotony of his days to music in his +poem of the rain; his mad fight against the elements, which in the end +break his strength, he has shaped into the image of the ferryman +struggling against the current that shatters his oars one after the +other. His cruel probing of his own pain he has visualised in the idea +of his fishermen, who with their nets all in holes go on fishing up +nothing but suffering on suffering out of the sombre stream; his evil +and red lusts he has spiritualised in his <i>Aventurier</i>, in the +adventurer who returns home from a far land to celebrate his wedding +feast with his dead love. Here his feelings are shaped no longer in +moods, in the fluid material of dreams, but in the infinitely mobile +form of human beings. Here there is symbolism in the highest sense, in +Goethe's sense of liberation. For every feeling that has achieved +artistic shape is as it were conjured away out of the breast. And thus +the too heavy pressure slowly disappears from the poet's being,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> and the +morbid fever from his work. Now and now only does he recognise the +suicidal cowardice behind the visor of the pride that forced him to fly +from the world, now and now only does he understand that fatal egoism +which had taken refuge beyond the pale of the world:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">J'ai été lâche et je me suis enfui</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Du monde, en mon orgueil futile,<a name="FNanchor_3_36" id="FNanchor_3_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_36" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>This confession is the last liberating word of the crisis.</p> + +<p>Now his despair—a despair like that of Faust—is overcome. The mood of +Easter morning begins to sound the exulting cry, 'Earth has me +again!'<a name="FNanchor_4_37" id="FNanchor_4_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_37" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> with the anthems of the resurrection. Verhaeren has described +this deliverance, this ascent from illness to health, from the most +despairing 'no' to the most exultant 'yes,' in many symbols, most +beautifully in that magnificent poem wherein St. George the +dragon-slayer bows down to him with his shining lance; and again in that +other poem in which the four gentle sisters approach him and announce +his deliverance:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">L'une est le bleu pardon, l'autre la bonté blanche,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">La troisième l'amour pensif, la dernière le don</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">D'être, même pour les méchants, le sacrifice.<a name="FNanchor_5_38" id="FNanchor_5_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_38" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Goodness and love call to him now from where of old there were only +hatred and despair. And in their approach already he feels the hope of +recovery, the hope of a natural, artistic strength.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et quand elles auront, dans ma maison,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Mis de l'ordre à mes torts, plié tous mes remords</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et refermé, sur mes péchés, toute cloison,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">En leur pays d'or immobile, où le bonheur</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Descend, sur des rives de fleurs entr'accordées,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Elles dresseront les hautes idées,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">En sainte-table, pour mon cÅ“ur.<a name="FNanchor_6_39" id="FNanchor_6_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_39" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>This feeling of recovery grows more and more secure, more and more the +mist parts before the approaching sun of health. Now the poet knows that +he has been wandering in the dark galleries of mines, that he has been +hammering a labyrinth through the hard rock of hatred instead of walking +the same path as his fellow-men in the light. And at last, bright and +exultant, high above the shy voices of hope and prayer, the sudden +triumph of certainty rings out. For the first time Verhaeren finds the +form of the poem of the future—the dithyramb. Where of old, confused +and lonely, <i>le carillon noir</i> of pain sounded, now all the strings of +the heart vibrate and sing.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Sonnez toutes mes voix d'espoir!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Sonnez en moi; sonnez, sous les rameaux,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">En des routes claires et du soleil!<a name="FNanchor_7_40" id="FNanchor_7_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_40" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>And now the path proceeds in light 'vers les claires métamorphoses.'<a name="FNanchor_8_41" id="FNanchor_8_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_41" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> + +<p>This flight into the world was the great liberation. Not only has the +body grown strong again and rejoices in the wandering and the way, but +the soul too has become cheerful, the will has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> grown new wings that are +stronger than the old, and the poet's art is filled with a fresh blood +red with life. The deliverance is perceptible even in Verhaeren's verse, +which with its delicate nerves reproduces all the phases of his soul. +For his poetry, which at first in the indifference of its picturesque +description preserved the cold form of the Alexandrine, and then, in the +grim monotony of the crisis, tried to represent the void waste of +feeling by a terrifying, gruesomely beautiful uniformity of rhythm, this +poem of a sudden, as though out of a dream, starts into life, awakens +like an animal from sleep, rears, prances, curvets; imitates all +movements, threatens, exults, falls into ecstasy: in other words, all of +a sudden, and independently of all influences and theories, he has won +his way to the <i>vers libre,</i> free verse. Just as the poet no longer +shuts the I world up in himself, but bestows himself on the world, the +poem too no longer seeks to lock the world up obstinately in its +four-cornered prison, but surrenders itself to every feeling, every +rhythm, every melody; it adapts itself, distends; with its foaming +voluptuous joy it can fold in its embrace the illimitable length and +breadth of cities, can contract to pick up the loveliness of one fallen +blossom, can imitate the thundering voice of the street, the hammering +of machines, and the whispering of lovers in a garden of spring. <i>The +poem can now speak in all the languages of feeling, with all the voices +of men; for the tortured,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> moaning cry of an individual has become the +voice of the universe.</i></p> + +<p>But together with this new delight the poet feels the debt which he has +withheld from his age. He beholds the lost years in which he lived only +for himself, for his own little feeling, instead of listening to the +voice of his time. With a remarkable concordance of genius Verhaeren's +work here expresses what Dehmel—in the same year perhaps—fashioned +with such grandeur in 'The Mountain Psalm,' the poem in which, looking +down from the heights of solitude to the cities in their pall of smoke, +he cries in ecstasy:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Was weinst du, Sturm?—Hinab, Erinnerungen!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">dort pulst im Dunst der Weltstadt zitternd Herz!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Es grollt ein Schrei von Millionen Zungen</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">nach Glück und Frieden: Wurm, was will dein Schmerz!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Nicht sickert einsam mehr von Brust zu Brüsten,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">wie einst die Sehnsucht, als ein stiller Quell;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">heut stöhnt ein <i>Volk</i> nach Klarheit, wild und gell,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">und du schwelgst noch in Wehmutslüsten?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Siehst du den Qualm mit dicken Fäusten drohn</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">dort überm Wald der Schlote und der Essen?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Auf deine Reinheitsträume fällt der Hohn</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">der Arbeit! fühl's: sie ringt, von Schmutz zerfressen.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Du hast mit deiner Sehnsucht bloss gebuhlt,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">in trüber Glut dich selber nur genossen;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">schütte die Kraft aus, die dir zugeflossen,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">und du wirst frei vom Druck der Schuld!<a name="FNanchor_9_42" id="FNanchor_9_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_42" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p> + +<p>Pour out the power that has flowed in upon thee! Surrender thyself! That +too is Verhaeren's ecstatic cry at this hour. Opposites touch. <i>Supreme +solitude is turned to supreme fellowship</i>. The poet feels that +self-surrender is more than self-preservation. All at once he sees +behind him the frightful danger of this self-seeking pain.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et tout à coup je m'apparais celui</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Qui s'est, hors de soi-même, enfui</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Vers le sauvage appel des forces unanimes.<a name="FNanchor_10_43" id="FNanchor_10_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_43" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>And he who in days gone by had fled from this appeal into cold solitude, +now casts himself ecstatically into the arms of the world, with the I +deepest yearning</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">De n'être plus qu'un tourbillon</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Qui se disperse au vent mystérieux des choses.<a name="FNanchor_11_44" id="FNanchor_11_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_44" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>He feels that in order to live to the full all the greatness and beauty +of this fiery world, he must multiply himself, be a thousandfold and ten +thousandfold what he is. 'Multiplie-toi!' Be manifold. Surrender +thyself! For the first time this cry bursts up like a flame. Be +manifold!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Multiplie et livre-toi! Défais</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Ton être en des millions d'êtres;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et sens l'immensité filtrer et transparaître.<a name="FNanchor_12_45" id="FNanchor_12_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_45" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Only from this brotherhood with all things accrue the possibilities of +being a modern poet. Only by self-surrender to everything that is could +Verhaeren attain to so grandiose a conception of contemporary +manifestations, only thus could he become the poet of the democracy of +cities, of industrialism, of science, the poet of Europe, the poet of +our age. Only such a pantheistic feeling could create this intimate +relationship between the world of self and the world surrounding self, +the relationship which subsequently ends in an unparalleled identity: +only so despairing a 'no' could be transformed to so enraptured a 'yes,' +only one who had fled from the world could possess it with such passion.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h5>FOOTNOTES:</h5> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_34" id="Footnote_1_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_34"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> 'Un Soir' (<i>Au Bord de la Route</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_35" id="Footnote_2_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_35"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> 'Le Forgeron' (<i>Les Villages Illusoires</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_36" id="Footnote_3_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_36"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> 'Saint Georges' (<i>Les Apparus dans mes Chemins</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_37" id="Footnote_4_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_37"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Goethe's <i>Faust</i>, 1. 784.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_38" id="Footnote_5_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_38"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> 'Les Saintes' (<i>Les Apparus dans mes Chemins</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_39" id="Footnote_6_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_39"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> 'Les Saintes' (<i>Les Apparus dans mes Chemins</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_40" id="Footnote_7_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_40"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> 'Saint Georges' (<i>Ibid</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_41" id="Footnote_8_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_41"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> 'Le Forgeron' (<i>Les Villages Illusoires</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_42" id="Footnote_9_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_42"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> 'Why weepest thou, O storm?—Down, memories! Yonder in the +smoke pulses the great city's trembling heart! A million grumbling +tongues are crying for peace and happiness: worm, what would thy pain! +Yearning no longer trickles lonely from breast to breasts, a quiet +source and no more: to-day a <i>nation</i> groans, and with wild, shrill +voices demands clearness—and thou still revellest in the joys of +melancholy? +</p><p> +'Seest thou the reek and smoke threatening yonder over the forest of +flues and chimneys? Upon thy dreams of purity falls the scorn of labour! +Feel it: labour is struggling, eaten up with dirt! Thou hast but +wantoned with thy yearning, thou hast but enjoyed thyself in turbid +heat; pour out the power that has flowed in upon thee, and thou shalt be +free from the burden of guilt!'—'Bergpsalm' (<i>Aber die Liebe</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_43" id="Footnote_10_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_43"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> 'La Foule' (<i>Les Visages de la Vie</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_44" id="Footnote_11_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_44"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> 'Celui du Savoir' (<i>Les Apparus dans mes Chemins</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_45" id="Footnote_12_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_45"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> 'La Forêt' (<i>Les Visages de la Vie</i>).<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p></div> + +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="PART_II" id="PART_II"></a>PART II</h3> + +<h3>CONSTRUCTIVE FORCES</h3> + + +<h4>LES CAMPAGNES HALLUCINÉES—LES VILLAGES</h4> + +<h4>ILLUSOIRES—LES VILLES TENTACULAIRES—</h4> + +<h4>LES DRAMES</h4> + +<h4>1893-1900</h4> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CONTEMPORARY_FEELING" id="CONTEMPORARY_FEELING"></a>CONTEMPORARY FEELING</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">J'étais le carrefour où tout se rencontrait.—É.V., 'Le Mont.'</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>Verhaeren's deliverance from the stifling clasp of his crisis was a +flight to realities. He saved himself by no longer fixing his gaze +rigidly on himself and deeply probing every feeling of joy and torment, +but by turning to the world of phenomena and flinging himself on its +problems. He has no longer to stand in solitude facing the world; his +desire is to multiply himself, to realise himself in everything that is +alive, in everything that expresses a will, an idea, a form, anything at +all animated. His poetic aim now is, not so much to analyse himself to +himself, as to analyse himself in the whole world.</p> + +<p>To realities, and particularly to the realities of our day, lyric poets +had previously felt themselves alien. It had long been a commonplace to +speak of the danger to art of industrialism, of democracy, of this age +of machinery which makes pur life uniform, kills individuality, and +drowns romance in actualities. All these poets have looked upon the new +creations, machines, railways, monster cities, the telegraph, the +telephone,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> all the triumphs of engineering, as a drag on the soaring of +poetry. Ruskin preached that workshops should be demolished and chimneys +razed to the ground; Tolstoy pointed to primitive man, who produces all +his requirements from his own resources independently of any community, +and saw in him the moral and æsthetic ideal of the future. In poetry, +the past had gradually come to be identified with the poetical. People +were enamoured of the glory that was Greece, of mail-coaches and narrow, +crooked streets; they were filled with enthusiasm for all foreign +cultures, and decried that of our own time as a phase of degeneration. +Democracy, levelling all ranks and confining even the poet to the +middle-class profession of author, seemed, as a social order, to be the +correlation of machinery which, by the constructive skill of workshops, +renders all manual dexterity unnecessary. All the poets, who were glad +to avail themselves of the practical advantages provided by technical +science, who had no objection to covering immense distances in the +minimum time, who accepted the comfort of the modern house, the luxury +of modern conditions of life, increased pecuniary rewards and social +independence, refused obstinately to discover in these advantages a +single poetic motive, a single object of inspiration, the least stimulus +or ecstasy. Poetry had by degrees come to be something which was the +very opposite of what-, ever is useful; all evolution seemed to these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> +poets to be, from the point of view of culture, retrogression.</p> + +<p>Now it is Verhaeren's great exploit that he effected a transmutation +poetic values. He discovered the sublime in the far-spread serried ranks +of democracy; beauty he found not only where it adapts itself to +traditional ideas, but also where, still hidden by the cotyledon of the +new, it is just beginning to unfold. By rejecting no phenomenon, in so +far as an inward sense and a necessity dwelt in it, he infinitely +extended the boundaries of the lyric art. He found a fruitful soil in +the very places where all other poets despaired of poetic seed. He and +he alone, who had for so long been eating his heart out in fierce +isolation, feels the strength and fulness of society, the poetical +element in the massed strength of great cities and in great inventions. +<i>His deepest longing, his most sublime exploit is the lyric discovery of +the new beauty in new things.</i></p> + +<p>The only way to this feat lay for him through the conviction that beauty +does not express anything absolute, but something that changes with +circumstances and with men; that beauty, like everything that is subject +to evolution, is constantly changing. Yesterday's beauty is not to-day's +beauty. Beauty is no more opposed than anything else to that tendency to +spiritualisation which is the most characteristic symptom ind result of +all culture. Physiologists have proved that the physical strength of +modern man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> is inferior to that of his ancestors, but that his nervous +system is more developed, so that strength is more and more concentrated +in the intellect. The Hellenic hero was the wrestler, the expression of +a body harmoniously developed in every limb, the perfection of strength +and skill; the hero of our time is the thinker, the ideal of +intellectual strength and suppleness. And since our only way of +estimating the perfection of things is by the ideal of our personal +feeling, the form of beauty likewise has been transformed and become +intellectual. And even when we seek it in the body, as, for instance, in +the ideal woman's figure, we have grown accustomed to seeing perfection +not so much in robustness and plumpness as in a noble, slender play of +lines which mysteriously expresses the soul. Beauty is turning away more +and more from the outer surface, from the physical, to the interior +aspects, to the psychic. In proportion as motive forces hide themselves +and as harmony becomes less obvious, beauty intellectualises itself. It +is becoming for us not so much a beauty of appearance as a beauty of; +aim. If we are to admire the telegraph or the telephone, we shall not be +satisfied with considering the exterior forms, the network of wires, the +keys, the receivers; we shall be impressed rather by the ideal beauty, +by the idea of a vibrating spark leaping over countries and whole +continents. A machine is not wonderful on, account of its rattling, +rusty, iron framework, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> by the idea, deep-seated in its body, which +is the principle of its magical activity. A modern idea of beauty must +be adapted not only to the idea of beauty of the past, but also to that +of the future. And the future of æsthetics is a kind of ideology, or, as +Renan expresses it, an identity with the sciences. We shall lose the +habit of understanding things only by our senses, of seeing their +harmony only on their exterior surface, and we shall have to learn how +to conceive their intellectual aims, their inner form, their psychic +organisation, as beauty.</p> + +<p>For these new things are only ugly when they are regarded with the eyes +of a past century, when our contemporaries, jealously guarding a +reverent over-estimation, valuing the rust and not the gold, despise +modern works of art, and pay a thousand times too dear for the +indifferent productions of a past age. Only in this state of feeling is +it possible to esteem mail-coaches poetical and locomotives ugly; only +thus is it possible for poets, who have not learned to see with +emancipated and independent eyes, to assume such a hostile attitude, or +at the best an indifferent attitude, to our realities. Let us remember +Nietzsche's beautiful words: 'My formula for grandeur in man is <i>amor +fati</i>: that a man should ask for nothing else, either in the past or in +the future, in all eternity. We must not only endure what is necessary, +still less conceal it—all idealism is lying in necessity's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> face—but +we must <i>love</i> it.'<a name="FNanchor_1_46" id="FNanchor_1_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_46" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> And in this sense some few in our days have loved +what is new, first as a necessity, and then as beauty. A generation ago +now, Carlyle was the first to preach the heroism of everyday life, and +exhorted the poets of his day not to describe the greatness they found +in mouldy chronicles, but to look for it where it was nearest to them, +in the realities around them. Constantin Meunier has found the idea of a +new sculpture in democracy, Whistler and Monet have discovered in the +smoky breath of this age of machinery a new tone of colour which is not +less beautiful than Italy's eternal azure and the halcyon sky of Greece. +It is only from the vast agglomerations, the immense dimensions of the +new world that Walt Whitman has derived the strength and power of his +voice. The whole difficulty which thus far has permitted only a few to +serve the new beauty in the new things lies in the fact that our age is +not yet a period of decided conviction, but only one of transition. The +victory of machinery is not yet complete; handiwork still subsists, +little towns still flourish, it is still possible to take refuge in an +idyll, to find the old beauty in some sequestered corner. Not till the +poet is shut off from all flight to inherited ideals will he be forced +to change himself into a new man. For the new things have not yet +organically developed their beauty. Every new thing on its first +appearance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> is blended with something repellent, brutal, and ugly; it is +only gradually that its inherent form shapes itself æsthetically. The +first steamers, the first locomotives, the first automobiles, were ugly. +But the slender, agile torpedo-boats of to-day, the bright-coloured, +noiselessly—gliding automobiles with their hidden mechanism, the great, +broad-chested Pacific Railway engines of to-day, are impressive by their +outward form alone. Our huge shops, such as those which Messel built in +Berlin, display a beauty in iron and glass which is hardly less than +that of the cathedrals and palaces of old time. Certain great things, +such as the Eiffel Tower, the Forth Bridge, modern men-of-war, furnaces +belching flame, the Paris boulevards, have a new beauty beyond anything +which past ages had to show. These new things compel a new enhancement +of value, on the one hand by the idea that moves them, on the other hand +by their democratic grandeur and their vast dimensions—equalled by none +but the very greatest works of antiquity. But whatever is beautiful +must, sooner or later, be conceived of as poetry. And thus, it is quite +sure, Verhaeren has only been one of the first to build bridges from the +old to the new time; others will come who will celebrate the new +beauties in the new things—gigantic cities, engines, industrialism, +democracy, this fiery striving for new standards of greatness—and they +will not only be compelled to find the new beauties,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> they will also +have to establish new laws for this new order, a different morality, a +different religion, a different synthesis for this new conditionality. +the poetic transmutation of the beautiful is only a first beginning of +the poetic transmutation of the feeling of life.</p> + +<p>But a poet never finds anything in things save his own temperament. If +he is melancholy, the world in his books is void of sense, all lights +are extinguished, laughter dies; if he is passionate, all feelings +seethe in a fiery froth as though in a cauldron, and foam up in angry +happenings. Whereas the real world is manifold, and contains the elixirs +of pleasure and pain, confidence and despair, love and hate, only as +elements so to speak, the world of great poets is the world of one +single feeling. And so Verhaeren too sees all things in their new beauty +with the feelings of his own life only, only with energy. In these the +fiery years of his prime it is not harmony that he seeks, but energy, +power. For him a thing is the more beautiful the more purpose, will, +power, energy it contains. And since the whole world of to-day is +over-heated with effort and energy; since our great towns are nothing +but centres of multiplied energy; since machinery expresses nothing save +force tanied and organised; since innumerable crowds are yoked in +harmonious action—to him the world is full of beauty. He loves the new +age because it does not isolate effort but condenses it, because it is +not scattered but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> concentrated for action. And of a sudden everything +he sees appears to be filled with soul. All that has will, all that has +an aim in view—man, machine, crowd, city, money; all that vibrates, +works, hammers, travels, exults; all that propagates itself and is +multiplied, all that strives to be creation; all that bears in itself +fire, impulse, electricity, feeling—all this rings again in his verse. +All that of old had acted upon him as being cold and dead and hostile is +now inspired with will and energy, and lives its minute; in this +multiple gear there is nothing that is merely dust or useless +ornamentation; everything is creation, everything is working its way +towards the future. The town, this piled-up Babylon of stones and men, +is of a sudden a living being, a vampire sucking the strength of the +land; the factories, that had seemed to him nothing but an unsightly +mass of masonry, now become the creators of a thousand things, which in +their turn create new things out of themselves. All at once Verhaeren is +the socialist poet, the poet of the age of machinery, of democracy, and +of the European race. And energy fills his poetry too: it is strength +let loose, enthusiasm, paroxysm, ecstasy, whatever you like to call it; +but always active, glowing, moving strength; never rest, always +activity. His poem is no longer declamation, no longer the marmoreal +monument of a mood, but a crying aloud, a fight, a convulsive starting, +a stooping down and a springing up again; it is a battle<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> materialised. +For him all values have been transmuted. It is just what had repelled +him most—London, monster cities, railway stations, Exchanges, which now +lure him most of all as poetic problems. The more a thing seems to +resist beauty—the more he has first to discover its beauty by fighting +it and wrestling with it in torment—with so much the greater ecstasy +does he now extol it. The strength which had murderously raged against +itself now, in creative ecstasy, breaks into the world. To tear down +resistance, to snatch beauty from its most hidden corner, is now for him +a tenfold strength and joy of creation. <i>Verhaeren now creates the poem +of the great city in the dionysiac sense</i>; the hymn to our own time, to +Europe; creates ecstasy, renewed and renewed again, in life.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h5>FOOTNOTES:</h5> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_46" id="Footnote_1_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_46"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> <i>Ecce Homo!</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="TOWNS_LES_VILLES_TENTACULAIRES" id="TOWNS_LES_VILLES_TENTACULAIRES"></a>TOWNS ('LES VILLES TENTACULAIRES')</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Le siècle et son horreur se condensent en elles</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Mais leur âme contient la minute éternelle.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 19.5em;">É.V., 'Les Villes.'</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>When a man just recovered from illness steps for the first time with +arms outspread, and as though climbing up from a dungeon, into the light +of day, he is filled with a bliss beyond measure by the open air +caressing him on all sides, by the orgies of the sunlight, the cataracts +of deafening din: with a cry of infinite exultation he takes into +himself the symphony of life. And from this first moment of his recovery +Verhaeren was seized by a limitless thirst for the intoxication of life, +as though with one single leap he would make good the lost years of his +loneliness, of his illness, and of his crisis. His eyes, his ears, his +nerves, all his senses, which had been a-hungered, now pounce on things +with a pleasure that is almost murderous, and snatch everything to +themselves in a frenzy of greed. At this time Verhaeren travelled from +country to country, as though he would take possession of all Europe. He +was in Germany, in Berlin, in Vienna, and in Prague; always a lonely +wanderer; quite alone; ignorant of the language, and listening only to +the voice of the town itself, to the strange, sombre murmuring,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> to the +surge of the European metropolises. In Bayreuth he paid his devotions at +the tomb of Wagner, whose music of ecstasy and passion he absorbed in +Munich; in Colmar he learned to understand his beloved painter Mathias +Grünewald; he saw and loved the tragic landscapes of northern Spain, +those gloomy, treeless mountains, whose threatening silhouettes +afterwards became the background of the fiery happenings in his drama of +<i>Philip II.</i>; in Hamburg he was an excited spectator, day by day, of the +stupendous traffic, the coming and going of the ships, the unloading and +the loading of cargoes. Everywhere where life was intensive, expressive, +and animated with a new energy, he passionately loved it. It is +characteristic of his temperament that the harmonious beauty of peaceful +and empty, of sleeping and dreaming cities appealed to him less than +modern cities in their pall of soot and smoke. Almost intentionally his +affection turns from the traditional ideal to one yet unknown. Florence, +for many centuries the symbol of all poets, disappointed him: the +Italian air was too mild, these contours were too meagre, too dreamy the +streets. But London, this piled-up conglomeration of dwellings and +workshops; this town that might have been cast in bronze; this teeming +labyrinth of dingy streets; this ever-beating, restless heart of the +world's trade with its smoke of toil threatening to eclipse the sun; +this was to him a revelation. Just the industrial towns,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> which had thus +far tempted no poet; those towns which roll up the vault of their leaden +sky with their own fog and smoke, which confine their inhabitants in +leagues and leagues of congested masonry, these attract him. He, who +revels in colour, grew fond of Paris, to which, since then, he has +returned every year for the winter months. Just what is restless and +busy, confused and breathless, hunted, eager, feverish, hot with an +ardour as of rut, all this Babylonian medley lures him. He loves this +pell-mell multiplicity and its strange music. Often he would travel for +hours on the top of heavy omnibuses, to have a bird's-eye view of the +bustling throng, and here he would close his eyes the better to feel the +dull rumour, this surging sound which, in its ceaselessness, is not +unlike the rustling of a forest, beating against his body. No longer as +in his earlier books does he follow the existence of simple callings; he +loves the ascension of handiwork to mechanical labour, in which the aim +is invisible, and only the grandiose organisation is revealed. And +gradually this interest became the motive interest of his life. +Socialism, which in those years was becoming strong and active, fell +like a red drop into the morbid paleness of his poetic work. +Vandervelde, the leader of the Labour Party, became his friend. And +when, at this stage, the party founded the Maison du Peuple at Brussels, +he readily helped, gave lectures at the Université Libre, took part in +all the projects, and afterwards,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> wards, in the most beautiful vision +of his poetical work, lifted them far above the political and actual +into the great events of all humanity. His life, now inwardly +established, henceforth beats with a strong and regular rhythm. He had +in the meantime, by his marriage, attained a personal appeasement, a +counterpoise for his unbridled restlessness. Now his wild ecstasies have +their fixed point, from which they can survey the fiery vortex of the +new phenomena. The morbid pictures, the feverish hallucinations, now +become clear visions; not by flashes of lightning, but in a steady, +beaming light are the horizons of our time now illuminated for him.</p> + +<p>Now that he steps boldly into life, his first problem is to come to an +understanding with the world around him, with his fellow-men, with the +city itself. But it is not the city he lives in which interests him in a +provincial sense, but the ideal, modern city, the monster city in +general, this strange and uncanny thing that like a vampire has snatched +to herself all the strength of the soil and of men to form a new +residuum of power. She crowds together the contrasts of life; grades, in +unexpected layers, immense riches over the most wretched poverty; +strengthens opposing forces, and goads them to hostility, goads them to +that desperate battle in which Verhaeren loves to see all things +involved. The grandeur of this new organism is beyond the æsthetics of +the past; and new and strange before Nature stand men also,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> with +another rhythm, a hotter breath, quicker movements, wilder desires than +were known to any association of men, to any calling or caste, of a +previous time. It is a new outlook which not only sweeps the distance, +but has also to reckon with height, with the piled tiers of houses, with +new velocities and new conditions of space. A new blood, money, feeds +these cities, a new energy fires them; they are driven to procreate a +new faith, a new God, and a new art. Their dimensions, terrific, and of +a beauty hitherto unknown, defy measurement; the order that rules is +hidden in the earth behind a pathless wilderness.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Quel océan, ses cÅ“urs? ...</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Quels nÅ“uds de volonté serrés en son mystère!<a name="FNanchor_1_47" id="FNanchor_1_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_47" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>cries out the poet in wonderment as he strides through the city and is +overpowered by her grandeur:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Toujours en son triomphe ou ses défaites,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Elle apparaît géante, et son cri sonne et son nom luit.<a name="FNanchor_2_48" id="FNanchor_2_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_48" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>He feels that an enormous energy proceeds from her; he is conscious that +her atmosphere rests with a new pressure on his body, that his blood +quickens to keep pace with her rhythm. Merely to be near her starts the +thrill of a new delight.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">En ces villes ...</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * </span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Je sens grandir et s'exalter en moi,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et fermenter, soudain, mon cÅ“ur multiplié.<a name="FNanchor_3_49" id="FNanchor_3_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_49" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p> + +<p>Involuntarily he feels himself becoming dependent on her, feels this +grandiose coupling of energy producing a similar concentration of all +his forces in himself too, feels his fever becoming infectious like her +own, and feels—with an intensity unknown to any other poet of our +days—the identity of his personality with the soul of the city. He +knows she is dangerous, knows she will fill him with all restlessness, +overheat him and excite him, confuse him with her hostile contrasts.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Voici la ville en or des rouges alchimies,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Où te fondre le cÅ“ur en un creuset nouveau</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et t'affoler d'un orage d'antinomies</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Si fort qu'il foudroiera tes nerfs jusqu'au cerveau.<a name="FNanchor_4_50" id="FNanchor_4_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_50" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>But he knows that she will impregnate him as well, give him power from +her strength. There will never be a great man again who will pass her +by, who will not be thrilled by her sensation, who will not live with +her, and by her grow. Henceforth all new and strong men will stand in +reciprocal action with her.</p> + +<p>This great recognition of a fact is, as we have seen, not spontaneous, +but painfully acquired. For in the sense of the old beauty the aspect of +a modern city is frightful. She is a sleepless, an ever wakeful woman; +she does not, like Nature, sometimes rest; she is never silent. +Restlessly she sucks men into her whirlpool; ceaselessly she pricks +their nerves; day and night her life pulses. By day she is as grey as +lead; a sultry shuttle of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> passions; a dark mine in which men, buried in +the mines of her streets, are forced to unresting toil. How dense are +these virgin forests of bronze and stone; and of all these thousands of +streets 'à poumons lourds et haletants, vers on ne sait quels buts +inquiétants,'<a name="FNanchor_5_51" id="FNanchor_5_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_51" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> not one seems to lead into the open, into the light of +day. Monotonous, like dull eyes, glare the millions of windows; and the +darksome caverns in which men, themselves like machines, sit by +machines, thunder in the unseizable rhythm of petrified exertion. Not a +ray is reflected on them from the eternal; hostile, repulsive, and grey +the town pants in the puffed smoke of her daily labour. But night, +softening all harsh lines, fierily welds the lumbering limbs together +into something new. By night the town is turned into one great +seduction. Passion, fettered in the day-time, breaks its chains:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">... Pourtant, lorsque les soirs</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Sculptent le firmament de leurs marteaux d'ébène,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">La ville au loin s'étale et domine la plaine</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Comme unnocturne et colossal espoir;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Elle surgit: désir, splendeur, hantise;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Sa clarté se projette en lueurs jusqu'aux cieux,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Son gaz myriadaire en buissons d'or s'attise,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Ses rails sont des chemins audacieux</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Vers le bonheur fallacieux</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Que la fortune et la force accompagnent;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Ses murs se dessinent pareils à une armée</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et ce qui vient d'elle encor de brume et de fumée</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Arrive en appels clairs vers les campagnes.<a name="FNanchor_6_52" id="FNanchor_6_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_52" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></p> + +<p>These fiery eruptions Verhaeren shapes in grandiose visions. There is +the vision of the music halls: wheels of fire revolve round a house, +blazing letters climb up façades and lure the crowds to sit in front of +the brilliant footlights. I Here the people's hunger for sensation is +fed full, and art is cruelly murdered day by day. Here tedium is tamed +for an hour or so, and whipped up with colour, flame, and music for +another pleasure that is waiting outside, as soon as the illusion here +sinks into the night:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et minuit sonne et la foule s'écoule</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">—Le hall fermé—parmi les trottoirs noirs;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et sous les lanternes qui pendent,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Rouges, dans la brume, ainsi que des viandes,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Ce sont les filles qui attendent....<a name="FNanchor_7_53" id="FNanchor_7_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_53" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>they the harlots, 'les promeneuses,' 'les veuves d'elles-mêmes,'<a name="FNanchor_8_54" id="FNanchor_8_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_54" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> who +live on the sensual hunger of the masses. For sensual pleasure too is +organised in cities, is guided into canals, like all instincts. But the +primordial instinct is the same. The hunger which out in the fields and +in the country was still pleasure in healthy food, in frothing beer, has +here been converted into the idea of money. Money is what everybody +hungers for here; money is the meaning of the town. 'Boire et manger de +l'or'<a name="FNanchor_9_55" id="FNanchor_9_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_55" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> is the hot dream of the crowd. Everything is expressed by +money, 'tout se définit par des monnaies';<a name="FNanchor_10_56" id="FNanchor_10_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_56" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> values are +subordinate to this new value, monetary value. Superb is the vision of +the bazaar, where, on all the counters, in the many stories, everything +is sold, not only as in reality objects in common use, but, in a loftier +symbolism, ethical values as well: convictions and opinions, fame and +name, honour and power, all the laws of life. But all this fiery blood +of money flows together in the great heart of the city, flows into the +Exchange, that greedy maw that swallows all the gold and spits it out +again, which smelts all this hectic fever and then pours it flaming into +all the veins of the city. Everything can be bought, even pleasure: in +back streets, in <i>l'étal</i>, in the haunts where debauch lies in wait, +women sell themselves as goods are sold in the bazaar. But this energy +is not always regulated, not always made to flow between dikes. Here +too, as in Nature, there are sudden catastrophes. Sometimes revolt is +kindled, flashes up instantaneously, and this stream of money blazes +itself a new trail. The masses pour out of their dismal caverns, greed +takes possession of men, and the myriad-headed monster fights and bleeds +for this one thing, this red-burning, relucent gold.</p> + +<p>But the great and powerful thing in these towns is not passion; it is +the hidden strength behind these passions, the noble order that keeps +them in their proper limits, and holds them in check. This rumbling +chaos, this inundation of things<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> doomed to die, is dominated in the +<i>Villes Tentaculaires</i> by three or four figures standing like +statues—the tamers of passions. They are what kings and priests were of +old, they who have the power of bridling ebullient energies and turning +them to use. With hands of iron they hold down this wild and dangerous +animal, they, the new rulers, statesmen, generals, demagogues, +organisers. For the town is an animal in its movements, a beast in its +passions, a brute in its instincts, a monster in its strength. It is +ugly, like all rut. It cannot be contemplated with a pure pleasure, like +a landscape gently and harmoniously fading in forest verdure; it rather +evokes, at first, loathing, hatred, caution, and hostility. But that is +the great thing in Verhaeren, that he always overcomes whatever is +hostile, pain and torment, by a great vista, that in this panting steam +of the unæsthetic he already sees the flame of the new beauty. Here for +the first time is, seen the beauty of factories, <i>les usines +rectangulaires,</i> the fascination of a railway station, the new beauty in +the new things. If the town is indeed ugly in its denseness, ugly in the +sense of all classical ideals; if the picture of it is indeed I cruel +and frightful; it is yet not unfertile. 'Le siècle et son horreur se +condensent en elle, mais son âme contient la minute éternelle.' And this +I feeling, that in her the minute of eternity is contained, that she is +the new thing risen above all the pasts, a new thing that one must +perforce<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> come to terms with, this feeling makes her momentous and +beautiful to the poet. If her form is loathsome, grey, and sombre, her +idea, her organisation, are grandiose and admirable. And here, as +always, where admiration finds a pivot, it can give the whole world the +swing from negation to assent.</p> + +<p>But Verhaeren is by this time too little of an artist, too much +interested in all the problems of life, to be able to contemplate the +idea of the modern city from the æsthetic side alone. It is for him a +still more important symbol for the expression of contemporary feeling.</p> + +<p>Not only the problem of the new social stratification is poetically +digested in his trilogy, but also one of the most burning and pressing +questions of political economy as of politics, the struggle between the +centrifugal and the centripetal power, the struggle between agrarianism +and industrialism. Town and country purchase their prosperity, the one +by the impoverishment of the other. Production and trade, however much +one is the condition of the other, at their extreme points are hostile +forces. And how, in our days in Europe, the victory between town and +country is being decided in favour of the town; how, gradually, the town +is absorbing the best strength of the provinces—the problem of the +<i>déracinés</i>—this has for the first time in poetry been described by +Verhaeren in his magnificent vision of <i>Les Villes Tentaculaires</i>. The +cities have sprung<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> up like mushrooms. Millions have conglomerated. But +where have they come from? From what sources have these immense masses +suddenly streamed into the mighty reservoirs? The answer is quick to +come. The heart of the city is fed with the oozing blood of the country. +The country is impoverished. As though they were hallucinated, the +peasants migrate to where gold is minted, to the town that in the +evenings flames across the horizon; to where alone riches lies, and +power. They march away with their carts, to sell their last stick of +furniture, their last rags; they march away with their daughter, to +deliver her up to lust; they march away with their son, to let him +perish in the factories; they march away to dip their hands, they also, +in this roaring river of gold. The fields are deserted. Only the +fantastic figures of idiots stagger along lonely paths; the abandoned +flour-mills are empty, and only turn when the wind smites against them. +Fever rises from the marshes, where the water, no longer gathered into +dikes, spreads putrefaction and pestilence. Beggars drag themselves from +door to door, with the country's barrenness reflected in their eyes; to +the last lingering cultivators come, sinuously, their worst enemies, +<i>les donneurs de mauvais conseils</i>. The emigration agent entices them to +wander to the lands of gold, and they squander what they have inherited +from their ancestors, to seek a far-distant hope:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Avec leur chat, avec leur chien,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Avec, pour vivre, quel moyen?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">S'en vont, le soir, par la grand'route.<a name="FNanchor_11_57" id="FNanchor_11_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_57" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>And they who are not enticed away by emigration are evicted from hearth +and home by usurers. Villages in which the dance of the kermesse has +long been silent are of a sudden cut in two by a network of railways. +There is no fairness in the fight. The country is conquered because the +blood of its inhabitants has been sucked out of it. 'La plaine est morte +et ne se défend plus.'<a name="FNanchor_12_58" id="FNanchor_12_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_58" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> Everything streams to Oppidomagnum. This is +the name given by Verhaeren in his symbolical drama <i>Les Aubes</i>—which, +with the <i>Campagnes Hallucinées</i> and the <i>Villes Tentaculaires</i> forms +the trilogy of the social revolution—to the monster city. This, with +its arms as of a polypus, pitilessly sucks all the strength of the +district round it. From all sides strength streams in upon it. 'Tous les +chemins se rythment vers elle.' Not only from the country does she drink +the strength of men, all the ocean seems to be pouring its waters only +to her port. 'Toute la mer va vers la ville.'<a name="FNanchor_13_59" id="FNanchor_13_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_59" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> The whole sea streams +to the city; all the rolling waves seem only to exist that they may +bring to her this wandering forest of ships. And she absorbs everything, +digests it in the 'noire immensité des usines rectangulaires,'<a name="FNanchor_14_60" id="FNanchor_14_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_60" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> +greedily devours it, to spit it out again as gold.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p> + +<p>But this immense social struggle between the country and the town +expresses, like the other new phases, something yet higher. It is only a +momentary symbol of an eternal schism. The country is the symbol of the +Conservatives. In the country the forms of labour are petrified, calm, +and regular; there life is without haste, and only regulated by the +rotation of the seasons. All sensations, all forms are pure and simple. +These men stand nearer to the freaks of chance: a flash of lightning, a +hailstorm can destroy their labour; and so they fear God, and do not +dare to doubt in Him. The town, however, symbolises progress. In the +thunder of the streets of to-day no Madonna's voice is heard; the life +of the individual is protected from chance by prearranged order; the +fever of the new creates also a yearning for new conditions of life, new +circumstances, for a new God.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">L'esprit des campagnes était l'esprit de Dieu;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Il eut la peur de la recherche et des révoltes,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Il chut; et le voici qui meurt, sous les essieux</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et sous les chars en feu des récoltes.<a name="FNanchor_15_61" id="FNanchor_15_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_61" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>If the country was the past, the town is the future. The country only +seeks to keep what it has, to preserve: its character, its beauty, its +God. But the town must first of all create, must make itself the new +beauty, the new faith, and the new God.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Le rêve ancien est mort et le nouveau se forge.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Il est fumant dans la pensée et la sueur</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Des bras fiers de travail, des fronts fiers de lueurs,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et la ville l'entend monter du fond des gorges</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">De ceux qui le portent en eux</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et le veulent crier et sangloter aux cieux.<a name="FNanchor_16_62" id="FNanchor_16_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_62" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>But we, Verhaeren thinks, must not belong to this world of the past, +this moribund world; no, we who live in towns must think with them, must +live with the new age, create in league with it, and find a new language +for its dumb yearning. A return to nature is no longer possible for us: +evolution cannot be screwed back again. If we have lost great values, we +must replace them by new; if our religious feeling for the old God is +cold and dead, we must create new ideals. We must find new aims that our +ancestors knew not of; in the new forms of the city we must find a new +beauty, in her noises a new rhythm, in her confusion an order, in her +energy an object, in her stammering a language.</p> + +<p>If the towns have destroyed much, they will perhaps create still more. +In their melting-pot professions, races, religions, nations, languages +are blended:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">...les Babels enfin réalisées</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et les peuples fondus et la cité commune</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et les langues se dissolvant en une.<a name="FNanchor_17_63" id="FNanchor_17_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_63" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>'The old order changeth, giving place to new'; and we must not ask +whether the new is better<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> than the old; we must trust that it is so. +The feverish convulsions of the great cities, this unrest, this +screaming torment, cannot be in vain. For they, these pains and +convulsions, are only the birth-throes of the new. But he who has been +the first to feel, with a glad presentiment, this pain of the masses, +this fermentation, as joy, this unrest as hope, must himself be an +authentic new man, one of those who are called to give a poetic answer +to all the complaints and questions of our time.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h5>FOOTNOTES:</h5> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_47" id="Footnote_1_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_47"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> 'L'Âme de la Ville' (<i>Les Villes Tentaculaires</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_48" id="Footnote_2_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_48"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Ibid. (<i>Ibid.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_49" id="Footnote_3_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_49"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> 'La Foule' (<i>Les Visages de la Vie</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_50" id="Footnote_4_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_50"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> 'Les Villes' (<i>Les Flambeaux Noirs</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_51" id="Footnote_5_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_51"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> 'L'Âme de la Ville' (<i>Les Villes Tentaculaires</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_52" id="Footnote_6_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_52"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> 'La Ville' (<i>Les Campagnes Hallucinées</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_53" id="Footnote_7_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_53"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> 'Les Spectacles' (<i>Les Villes Tentaculaires</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_54" id="Footnote_8_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_54"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> 'Les Promeneuses' (<i>Ibid</i>.).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_55" id="Footnote_9_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_55"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> 'La Bourse' (<i>Ibid.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_56" id="Footnote_10_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_56"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> 'Le Bazar' (<i>Ibid.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_57" id="Footnote_11_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_57"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> 'Le Départ' (<i>Les Campagnes Hallucinées</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_58" id="Footnote_12_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_58"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> 'La Plaine' (<i>Les Villes Tentaculaires</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_59" id="Footnote_13_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_59"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> 'Le Port' (<i>Ibid.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_60" id="Footnote_14_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_60"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> 'La Plaine' (<i>Ibid.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_61" id="Footnote_15_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_61"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> 'Vers le Futur' (<i>Les Villes Tentaculaires</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_62" id="Footnote_16_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_62"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> 'L'Âme de la Ville' (<i>Les Villes Tentaculaires</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_63" id="Footnote_17_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_63"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> 'Le Port'(<i>Ibid.</i>).<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="THE_MULTITUDE" id="THE_MULTITUDE"></a>THE MULTITUDE</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Mets en accord ta force avec les destinées</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Que la foule, sans le savoir,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Promulgue, en cette nuit d'angoisse illuminée.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 18.5em;">É.V., 'La Foule.'</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>That great event which is the modern city was at bottom only possible by +the organisation of the mighty multitudes of the people and the +distribution of their forces. To organise is to weld unlike forces +economically into an organism, to imitate something that has life and +soul, in which nothing is superfluous and everything is necessary; it is +to give a material its uniform strength, to give an idea the flesh and +bones of its shape and of its possibility. Now the town has smelted the +scattered forces of the country into a new material—into the multitude; +it has converted much that used to be individually active force into +mechanical force; it has humbled man to the condition of a handle, a +rolling wheel; it has everywhere tied up the individuality of the single +man in order to produce a new individuality, that of the crowd. For the +multitude as a fact is a new thing. For centuries it was only a symbol, +an idea. The inhabitants of whole countries were logically epitomised in +a number, but with no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> suggestion of thus comprehending their immediate +unity. Of course, in times past great armies have been known, hordes of +fighting men and nomad tribes; but these only represented a volatile +concentration, too unsettled, too inconstant to procreate an +individuality, an æsthetic and moral value. And even those armies whose +legendary greatness echoes down the centuries, the hordes of Tamerlaine, +the hosts of the Persians, the legions of Rome, how poor is their number +in comparison with the masses of human beings daily herded together in +New York or London or Paris! Only in our own days, only in Oppidomagnum, +has the multitude been welded together finally and for all time, been +hooked together with bands of steel like the wheels of an immense +machine; only recently has the crowd become a living being that grows +and multiplies like a forest. Democracy has given it new intellectual +forms, set a brain in the body, by making the multitude determinate, +subject only to itself. It is a creation of the nineteenth century; it +is a new value in our lives, and one that we must come to terms with; no +less a value for our evolution than the highest values of the past. Walt +Whitman, to whom one must constantly refer in dealing with Verhaeren's +work, although—let it be expressly stated here—Verhaeren quite +independently and unconsciously arrived at the same goal from the same +starting-point, once said: 'Modern science and democracy seemed to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> +throwing out their challenge to poetry to put them in its statements in +contradistinction to the songs and myths of the past.'<a name="FNanchor_1_64" id="FNanchor_1_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_64" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> And every +modern poet will have to come to terms with the masses of democracy, +will have to contemplate them synthetically as an individual living +being, as a man, or as a God. In his Utopian drama <i>Les Aubes</i> Verhaeren +has ranged them among the dramatis personæ, and, to express his inner +vision, he has added this stage direction: 'Les groupes agissent comme +un seul personnage à faces multiples et antinomiques.' For, like the +images of Indian gods, they have a hundred arms, but their cry is in +unison; their will is simple; their energy is uniform; one and the same +is their heart, 'le cÅ“ur myriadaire et rouge de la foule.'<a name="FNanchor_2_65" id="FNanchor_2_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_65" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> A +hundred years of life in communion, a hundred years of distress in +common, of hope in common, have welded them together into one unity, +into one new feeling. Sleepless and restless like a dangerous animal +lies the multitude in the monster cities; all the passions of individual +man are hers, vanity, hunger, anger; she has all vices and crimes in +common with her smallest member, man; only, everything in her is +intensified to unknown magnitudes. Everything in her passions is +stupendously superdimensional, beyond calculation, and, in a new sense, +divine. For just as the gods of old were formed after the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> image of man, +save that they represented man's strength and intelligence magnified to +the hundredth degree, the multitude is the synthesis of individual +forces, the most prolific accumulation of passion.</p> + +<p>With the multitude the individual comes into being, and without her he +perishes. Consciously or unconsciously, every man is subject to her +power. For the modern man is no longer free from the influence of +others, as the tiller of the fields was in olden days, or the shepherd, +or the hunter, each of whom was dependent only on the anger of heaven, +the whims of the earth, on weather and hailstorms, on chance, which he +clad in the august image of his god. The modern man is in all his +feelings determined by the world around him, set in his place in the +ranks, and moved with the ranks like a shuttle to and fro; he is a +dependent in his instincts. We all feel socially; we cannot think away +the others who are round us and in front of us any more than we can +think away the air that nourishes us. We can flee from them, but we +cannot flee away from what has penetrated us from them. For the +multitude rules us like a force of nature, nourishes us with its +feelings. The unsocial man is a fiction. Just as little as in a great +city one can shut off one's room entirely from the noise, the rhythm of +the street, just so little can one think isolatedly, just so little can +the soul keep itself at a distance from the great intellectual +excitements<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> of the multitude. Verhaeren himself made the attempt in the +days when he wrote the verses:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Mon rêve, enfermons-nous dans ces choses lointaines</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Comme en de tragiques tombeaux.<a name="FNanchor_3_66" id="FNanchor_3_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_66" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>But the life of reality claimed him again; for society destroys him who +turns away from her, as one is destroyed who shuts himself out from the +fresh air. The poet, too, must involuntarily think with the multitude +and of the multitude. For to the same extent as democracy has exercised +its levelling influence, to the same extent as it has limited +individualities, enrolled the poet among the class of citizens, +diminished the contrasts of chance, it has at the same time matured new +forces in their multiplicity. In democracy the modern poet can find +everything for which the ancients felt constrained to discover gods, +those incalculable forces which bind the individual like enchantment. +The town, the multitude feeds his energy with its exhaustless abundance; +it multiplies his own strength. For everything the individual has lost +is stored in it, great heroism and ecstatic enthusiasm. It is the great +source of the unexpected and the incalculable in our days, the new thing +concerning which no one knows how great it will grow. To have seen in it +an enrichment, instead of a restriction, of the poetic instinct, is one +of the great merits of Verhaeren. For while the majority of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> +contemporary poets still maintain the fiction of the recluse in his +wistful loneliness, while they recoil from before the multitude as +though from men stricken with the plague, while they create for +themselves an artificial seclusion, and heedlessly go their way past +locomotives and telegraphs, banks and workshops, Verhaeren drinks +greedily from these sources of new strength.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Comme une vague en des fleuves perdue,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Comme une aile effacée, au fond de l'étendue,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Engouffre-toi,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Mon cÅ“ur, en ces foules battant les capitales!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Réunis tous ces courants</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Et prends</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Si large part à ces brusques métamorphoses</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">D'hommes et de choses,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Que tu sentes l'obscure et formidable loi</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Qui les domine et les opprime</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Soudainement, à coups d'éclairs, s'inscrire en toi.<a name="FNanchor_4_67" id="FNanchor_4_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_67" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>For she, 'la foule,' the multitude, is the great transposer of values in +our day. She takes into her bosom and transforms the men who come to her +from the country, from the four winds of heaven; none of us escapes her +levelling power. The most distant races are blended in the city's huge +melting-pot, are adapted to one another, and forthwith become a new +thing, a different thing, a new race, the new race of contemporary man, +who has made his peace with the atmosphere of the great city, who not +only painfully feels the depression of her walls and his divorce from +Nature, but creates himself a new strength<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> and a new feeling of the +universe in this manifold human presence. The great feat of the +multitude is that it accelerates the process of changing values. The +individual elements perish in favour of this individuality of a new +community. Old communities lose their unity, new communities must arise. +America is the first example: here, in a hundred years, one single great +brotherhood, a new type, has been developed from the forces of a +thousand peoples; and in our capitals, in Paris, Berlin, and London, +people are already growing up who are not Frenchmen and not Germans, but +in the first place only Parisians and Berliners, who have a different +accent, a different way of thinking, whose native land is the great +city, the multitude. The inhabitant of the great city, the democratic +man of the multitude, is a sharply defined character. If he is a poet, +his poetry must be social; if he is a thinker, the intelligence of the +masses, the instinct of the many, must be his also. To have attempted +the psychology of this multitude for the first time in poetry is one of +the great feats of audacity for which we must be grateful to Verhaeren.</p> + +<p>But these individual accumulations of men into a multitude, these +combinations of millions into towns, are not isolated. One bond holds +them all together: modern traffic. The distances of reality have +disappeared, and with them national divisions as well. By the side of +the problem of individual conglomerations which only slowly are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> +transformed into organisms, by the side of the individual races, the +individual masses, now arises a greater synthesis, the synthesis of the +European race. For the men of our continent are no longer so distant, so +strange to one another as they formerly were. Social democracy with its +organisation encompasses the masses from one end of Europe to the other. +To-day the same desires fire the men of Paris, London, St. Petersburg, +Vienna, and Rome. And already one common formula directs their +exertions: money.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Races des vieux pays, forces désaccordées,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Vous nouez vos destins épars, depuis le temps</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Que l'or met sous vos fronts le même espoir battant.<a name="FNanchor_5_68" id="FNanchor_5_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_68" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Independently of the frontiers of countries, on a broad-based +foundation, a unified race, a new community, the European, is in process +of formation. Here desire and reality are near touching. Verhaeren sees +Europe already united by one great common energy. Europe is for him the +land of consciousness. While other continents, distant as though in a +dream, are still living a vegetative life, while Africa and India are +still dreaming as they dreamt in the darkness of primitive times, Europe +is 'la forge où se frappe l'idée,'<a name="FNanchor_6_69" id="FNanchor_6_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_69" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> the great smithy in which all +differences, all individual observations, all results, are hammered and +moulded into a new intellectuality, into <i>European consciousness</i>. The +union is not yet inwardly complete; states are still<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> hostile and +ignorant of their community; but already 'le monde entier est repensé +par leurs cervelles.'<a name="FNanchor_7_70" id="FNanchor_7_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_70" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> Already they are working at the transvaluation +of all feeling in the European sense. For a new system of ethics, a new +system of æsthetics, will be required by the European, who, rich by the +past, strong in the feeling of the multitude, is now conscious of +drawing his strength from new masses. Here it is that Verhaeren's work +sings over into Utopia; and in <i>Les Aubes</i>, the epilogue to <i>Les Villes +Tentaculaires,</i> this glittering rainbow rises over the visions of +reality to the new ideal; the prophetic dream of a better future rises +over the still struggling present.</p> + +<p>This yearning for the European has been expressed for the first time in +poetry by Verhaeren, almost contemporaneously with Walt Whitman's +hailing of the American and Friedrich Nietzsche's prophecy of the +superman. It would be a tempting task, and full of interest, to set up +the Pan-European in antithesis to the Pan-American. But to say that +Verhaeren was the first of lyric poets to feel as consciously European +as Walt Whitman felt American, is to establish his rank among the most +considerable men of our time. Verhaeren is possibly the only lyric poet +who has felt in accordance with contemporary feeling. That epitomises +his whole claim to gratitude, for it sufficiently expresses the fact +that he has taken<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> to his heart the problem of the multitude; the energy +of social innovations; the æsthetics of organisation; the grandeur of +mechanical production; in a word, the poetry of material things. It is +our own time, the new age, that speaks in his verse; and it speaks in +its new language. This rhythm which he has discovered is no literary +abstraction, but beats in perfect unison with the heart-beat of the +crowd; it is an echo of the panting of our monster cities, of the +clanking of trains, of the cry of the people; his language is new, +because it is no longer the voice of one man, but unites in itself the +many voices of the multitude. He has penetrated deeper than any other +man into the feeling of the masses, and their surf echoes more strongly +in his verse. The hollow rumbling, the bestial and tameless strength of +their voice, the surf of the multitude, has here become shape and music, +the highest identity. With pride one can say of Verhaeren what he +himself vaunts in his 'Captain': 'Il est la foule,'<a name="FNanchor_8_71" id="FNanchor_8_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_71" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> he himself is the +multitude.</p> + + + +<div class="footnotes"><h5>FOOTNOTES:</h5> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_64" id="Footnote_1_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_64"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> <i>A Backward Glance O'er Travelled Roads.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_65" id="Footnote_2_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_65"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> 'La Conquête (<i>La Multiple Splendeur</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_66" id="Footnote_3_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_66"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> 'Sous les Prétoriens' (<i>Au Bord de la Route</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_67" id="Footnote_4_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_67"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> 'La Foule' (<i>Les Visages de la Vie</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_68" id="Footnote_5_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_68"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> 'La Conquête' (<i>La Multiple Splendeur</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_69" id="Footnote_6_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_69"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> <i>Ibid. (Ibid.).</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_70" id="Footnote_7_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_70"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> 'La Conquête' (<i>Les Forces Tumultueuses</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_71" id="Footnote_8_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_71"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> 'Le Capitaine' (<i>Les Forces Tumultueuses</i>).<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="THE_RHYTHM_OF_LIFE" id="THE_RHYTHM_OF_LIFE"></a>THE RHYTHM OF LIFE</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Dites, les rythmes sourds dans l'univers entier!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">En définir la marche et la passante image</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">En un soudain langage;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">. . . . . . . . . . . . . .</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Prendre et capter cet infini en un cerveau,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Pour lui donner ainsi sa plus haute existence.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">É.V., 'Le Verbe'.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>The rhythm of modern life is a rhythm of excitement. The city with its +multitudes is never completely at rest: even in its repose, in its +silence, there is a secret bubbling as of lava in the bowels of a +volcano, a waiting and watching, a nervous tension tinged with fever. +For the idea of energy in the myriad-headed monster city is so +concentrated, so intensified, that it never loses its rumbling activity. +Rest, a polar feeling, would be the inner negation, the annihilation, of +this new element. True, the city with her teeming masses is not always +in the fever-throes of those great eruptions of passion when through the +arteries of her streets the blood streams suddenly; when all her muscles +seem to contract; when cries and enthusiasm blaze up like a flame; but +always something seems to be expecting this fiery second, just as in +modern man there is always the whipped unrest that is avid of new<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> +things, new experiences. Modern cities are in perpetual vibration; and +so is the multitude from man to man. Even if the individual is not +excited, if his nerves are not always stirring with his own vibration, +they are yet always vibrating in harmony with the obscure resonance of +the universe. The great city's rhythm beats in our very sleep; the new +rhythm, the rhythm of our life, is no longer the regular alternation of +relaxation and repose, it is the steady vibration of an unintermitted +activity.</p> + +<p>Now, a modern poet who wishes to create in real harmony with +contemporary feeling must himself have something of the perpetual +excitement, the unremitting watchfulness, the restless and nervous +sensitiveness of our time; his heart must unconsciously beat in tact +with the rhythm of the world around him. But not only unrest must +flicker in him, not only must that excessive delicacy of feeling which +is almost morbid be in him, this neurasthenic sleeplessness—not only +the negative element of our epoch, but the grandiose as well, the +superdimensional, the spontaneity of the sudden discharge of forces held +in reserve, the overwhelming force of the great eruption. Like the +masses of our towns, he must be so fashioned that a trifle will +stimulate him to the greatest passion, must be so fashioned that he +cannot help being carried away by the intoxication of his own strength. +Just as the masses have, so to speak, organised themselves as a body,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> +so that there is no individual excitement in them, no irritation and +inflammation of any single part, but so that a reaction of the whole +body responds to every separate irritation, just in the same manner must +the excitement of a modern, a contemporary poet, a poet of a great town, +never be the excitement of a single sense, but, if it is to be strong, +it must quiver through the whole body like an electric shock. His poetic +rhythm must therefore be physically vital; it must envelop all his +feeling and thinking; it must respond to every individual irritation, to +every individual sensation, with the massed weight of feeling of all his +vital forces: the need of a rhythm strained to the full must be, as +Nietzsche has so wonderfully demonstrated in his <i>Ecce Homo</i>! a measure +for the strength of the inspiration, a sort of balancing, as it were, of +the pressure and tension of the inspiration. For the poet of to-day, if +he does not wish to remain the poet of the eternal yesterday, must, as a +microcosm, imitate in his passion the macrocosm of the multitude, +wherein also the excitement of the individual is trivial and aimless, +and only the ebullition of the whole fermenting mass is irresistible and +momentous.</p> + +<p>Then, in such poems, the <i>rhythm of modern life</i> will break through. At +this moment we must remember what rhythm really means. The rhythm of a +being is in the last instance nothing but its breathing. Everything that +is alive, every organism, has breath, the interchange and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> resting-space +between giving and taking. And so breathes a poem too; and it is +worthless if it is not a living thing, if it is not an organism, a body +with a soul. Only in its rhythm does it become alive, as man does in his +breathing. But the diversity, the originality of the rhythm only arises +from the alternation of these drawn breaths. Breathing is different in +those who are calm, excited, joyous, nervous, oppressed, ecstatic. Every +sensation produces its corresponding rhythm. And since every poet in his +individuality represents a new form of inner passion, his poem too must +have this rhythm of his own, the rhythm which expresses his personal +poetic peculiarity just as characteristically as his speaking expresses +an individual accent and dialect. To understand Verhaeren's rhythm we +must remember this basic form of the poetic feeling at the heart of him; +we must compare it with the feeling at the heart of those who have gone +before him. In Victor Hugo there was the earnest, great, soaring rhythm +of the loud speaker, of the preacher who never addresses individuals but +always the whole nation; in Baudelaire there was the regular hymnic +rhythm of the priest of art; in Verlaine the irregular, sweet, and +gentle melody of one speaking in dreams. In Verhaeren, now, there is the +rhythm of a man hurrying, rushing, running; of a restless, passionate +man; the rhythm of the modern, of the Americanised man. It is often +irregular; you hear in it the panting of one who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> is hunted, who is +hurrying to his goal; you hear his impact with the obstacles he stumbles +against, the sudden standstill of intemperate effort exhausted. But with +him the rhythmic energy is never intellectual, never verbal, never +musical; it is purely emotional, physical. Not only the end of the nerve +vibrates and sounds; not only does the language shake the air; but out +of the whole organism, as though all the nerve-strings had suddenly +begun to sound the alarm, burst the terror and the ecstasy of fever. His +poem is never a state of repose—no more than the multitude is ever +quite repose—it is in a true sense rhythm, passion set in motion. You +feel the excitement of the man in it, motion, the covering of a +distance, activity; never contemplation comfortably resting, or dream +girt with sleep. And as a matter of fact, it is from motion in the +physical sense that nearly all his poems have arisen: Verhaeren has +never composed poetry at his writing-table, but while wandering over the +fields with a rhythmically moved body whose accelerated pace pulses to +the very heart of the poem, or while rushing along through the din and +bustle of streets in great cities. In these poems is that quicker +rolling of the blood that comes from exercise, that jerk of unrest and +passion tearing themselves away from repose. You feel that in this man +feeling is too strong, that he would fain free himself from it, run away +from it in his own body. The feeling is so strong that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> it turns to +pain, or rather pressure, and the poem is nothing else than the erection +that precedes relief, the throes that bring forth out of pregnancy. Just +as the multitude in revolt bursts the bonds of its excitement and +launches of a sudden all the passion dammed back for centuries, so +springs from the poet like a geyser the passionate assault of words +bursting from too long silence. These cries are a physical relief. These +'élans captifs dans le muscle et la chair '<a name="FNanchor_1_72" id="FNanchor_1_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_72" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> are the relief of a +convulsion, the easy breathing after oppression. As a passionate man is +forced to relieve himself by gestures, or in a fit of rage, or in cries, +or in weeping, or in some other state opposed to rest, the poet +discharges his feeling in rhythmic words: 'L'homme à vous prononcer +respirait plus à l'aise'<a name="FNanchor_2_73" id="FNanchor_2_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_73" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> he has said of the man who was the first to +force the excess of his feeling into speech.</p> + +<p><i>It is, then, a force positively physical which produces Verhaeren's +rhythm.</i> It is difficult to prove such an assertion, for the state of +creation is unconscious and unapproachable, although it may intuitively +be detected in those moments of recreation, in that second of a new +birth when a poet recites his work, when he feels, as it were, the +pressure of the feeling weighing upon him artificially in recollection, +when by the force of his imagination he relieves himself again as at the +birth of the poem. And any one who has once heard Verhaeren reciting +poetry will know how<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> much with him the rhythm of body and poem is one +and indivisible, how the excitement that becomes rhythmical in the +vibrating word is at the same time converted into the identical gesture. +The calm eyes grow keen, they seem to pierce the near paper; the arm is +raised commandingly, and every finger of the hand is stretched out to +mark the cæsura as though with an electric shock; to hammer the verses; +and with the voice to eject the hurrying and almost screaming words into +the room. In his movements there is then that terrific effort of one who +would fain tear himself away from himself, that sublimest gesture of the +poet striving away from the earth, striving away from himself, from the +heavy gait of words to winged passion. Man coalesces with Nature in one +second of the most wonderful identity:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Les os, le sang, les nerfs font alliance</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Avec on ne sait quoi de frémissant</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Dans l'air et dans le vent;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">On s'éprouve léger et clair dans l'espace,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">On est heureux à crier grâce,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Les faits, les principes, les lois, on comprend tout;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Le cÅ“ur tremble d'amour et l'esprit semble fou</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">De l'ivresse de ses idées.<a name="FNanchor_3_74" id="FNanchor_3_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_74" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Every time that Verhaeren reads his poetry, this re-birth of the first +creative state is renewed. <i>It is in the first place a deliverance from +pain, and in the second place it is pleasure</i>. Again and again<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> the word +darts along like a beast let loose; in the wildest rhythm; in a rhythm +that begins slowly, cautiously; quickens; then grows wilder and wilder; +grows to an intoxicating monotony, an ever-increasing speed, a rattling +din that reminds one of an express whizzing along at full speed. Like a +locomotive—for in Verhaeren's case one has to think in images of this +kind, and not in outworn tropes as of Pegasus—the poem rushes on, +driven only by a measure which reminds one of the short explosions of an +automobile. And as a matter of fact the scansion of the locomotive, its +restless rattling, has often been the cause of the rhythmic velocity of +his verses. Verhaeren himself is fond of relating that he has often, and +with delight, written poems on railway journeys, and that the cadence of +his verse has then been fired by the regular rattle of the train. He +describes wonderfully the rapture of the speed poured into his blood by +the whizzing past of trains. The whistling of the wind in moaning trees, +the dashing of the foaming sea along the shore, the echo a thousand +times repeated of thunder in the mountains, all these strong sounds have +become rhythm in his poems; all noisy things, all violent, swift +emotions have made it brusque, angry, and excited:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Oh! les rythmes fougueux de la nature entière</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et les sentir et les darder à travers soi!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Vivre les mouvements répandus dans les bois,</span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Le sol, les vents, la mer et les tonnerres;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Vouloir qu'en son cerveau tressaille l'univers;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et pour en condenser les frissons clairs</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">En ardentes images,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Aimer, aimer, surtout la foudre et les éclairs</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Dont les dévorateurs de l'espace et de l'air</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Incendient leur passage!<a name="FNanchor_4_75" id="FNanchor_4_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_75" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>But this is the new thing in Verhaeren, that he has transformed into +rhythm not only the voice of Nature, but also the new noises, the +grumbling of the multitude, the raging of cities, the rumbling of +workshops. Often in his rhythm can be heard the beat of hammers; the +hard, edged, regular whizzing of wheels; the whirring of looms; the +hissing of locomotives; often the wild, restless tumult of streets; the +humming and rumbling of dense masses of the people. Poets before him +imitated in the harmony of their verse the monotony of sources and the +babbling of water over pebbles, or the soughing voice of the wind. But +he makes the voice of the new things speak; makes the rhythm of the +city, this rhythm of fever and of unrest, this nervous moving of the +crowd, this unquiet billowing of a new ocean, flow over into his new +poem. Hence this up and down in his verses; this suddenness and +unexpectedness; this incalculable element. <i>The new, the industrial +noises have here become the music of poetry</i>. Since he does not seek to +express his own individual sensation of life, but would himself only be +a voice for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> the multitude, the rhythm is more roaring and restless than +that of any individual being. Like the first poets, those of old time, +before whom there were no outworn and exhausted words; like the poets +whose feeling burst into flame at every word, every cry; who discovered +themselves 'en exaltant la souffrance, le mal, le plaisir, le bien'; +like them when they</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">... confrontaient à chaque instant</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Leur âme étonnée et profonde</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Avec le monde,<a name="FNanchor_5_76" id="FNanchor_5_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_76" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>poets who would be modern must compare their own soul with that of their +time, must always regulate their rhythm according to the mutation of +their time. Their deepest yearning must be to find not only their own +personal expression, but over and above it the poetic and musical +representation of the highest identity between themselves and their +time. For poets are the inheritors of a great patrimony:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">... En eux seuls survit, ample, intacte et profonde,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">L'ardeur</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Dont s'enivrait, devant la terre et sa splendeur,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">L'homme naïf et clair aux premiers temps du monde;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">C'est que le rythme universel traverse encor</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Comme aux temps primitifs leur corps.<a name="FNanchor_6_77" id="FNanchor_6_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_77" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>They must, in these days, only express themselves when they have first +adapted the rhythm of their own feeling to that of the universe, to the +rhythm of the cities they live in, to the rhythm<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> of the multitude from +which they have grown, to the rhythm of temporal as of eternal things. +They must, like a vein in the heart of the world, reproduce every beat +of the great hammer, every excitement, quickening of pace and +obstruction of the feeling rolled round in the whole organism; they must +learn from life the rhythm which shall again achieve the great harmony +that was lost between the world and the work of art.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h5>FOOTNOTES:</h5> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_72" id="Footnote_1_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_72"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> 'Le Verbe' (<i>La Multiple Splendeur</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_73" id="Footnote_2_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_73"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> (<i>Ibid.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_74" id="Footnote_3_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_74"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> 'Les Heures où l'on crée' (<i>Les Forces Tumultueuses</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_75" id="Footnote_4_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_75"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> 'L'En-Avant' (<i>Les Forces Tumultueuses</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_76" id="Footnote_5_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_76"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> 'Le Verbe' (<i>La Multiple Splendeur</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_77" id="Footnote_6_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_77"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> (<i>Ibid.</i>).<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="THE_NEW_PATHOS" id="THE_NEW_PATHOS"></a>THE NEW PATHOS</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Lassé des mots, lassé des livres.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">. . . . . . . . .</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Je cherche, en ma fierté,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">L'acte qui sauve et qui délivre.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 11em;">É.V., 'L'Action.'</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The primitive poem, that which came into being long before writing or +print, was nothing but a modulated cry that was hardly language, a cry +won from joy or pain, mourning or despair, recollection or passionate +entreaty, but always from fulness of feeling. It was pathetic, because +it was produced by passion; pathetic, because its intention was to +produce passion. The poem of those great and distant men who were the +first to find word and speech in the darted cry of feeling, was an +invocation of the crowd; an exhortation; a fiery incitement; an ecstasy; +a direct electric discharge of feeling to feeling. The poet spoke to the +others, an individual to a circle. The auditors stood before him in +expectation—somewhat as Max Klinger in his new picture has gathered +them together in front of blind Homer—they waited, watched, listened, +surrendered themselves, let themselves be carried away; or they +resisted. That poem and the delivery of it were not something finished +and presented for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> approval; no vessel or ornament already hammered into +shape and perfectly chiselled; they were something in the process of +creation, something newly growing at that moment, a struggle with the +hearer, a wrestling with him for his passion.</p> + +<p>Poets lost this close, glowing contact with the masses when writing was +invented. What the dissemination of the written word, and still more, in +after days, the infinite multiplication of printing, dowered them with; +all the new influence over spaces hitherto closed; the fact that their +words were henceforth alive in countries which they had never visited; +that men drew strength and inspiration and vital courage from their +words long after their own bodies had fallen into dust—this vast and +mighty effect had only been obtained by relinquishing that other and +perhaps not lesser effect—dialogue, that standing face to face with the +multitude. By slow degrees poets became something imaginary to the +public. When they spoke, they really only listened to themselves; more +and more their poem became a lonely colloquy with themselves; the +harangue became a monologue, more and more lyrical in a new sense and +less and less moving. More and more their poem travelled away from +speech; more and more it lost that mysterious, passionate fire that is +only fed by the moment, by standing face to face with an excited crowd, +by the magical influx of tension and stimulation out of the heart of +the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> hearer into the poet's own words. For, with his expectation, with +his eager eyes, his excitement, and his intractable impatience, every +listener does something for the speaker: he goads him; he forces +something of his expectant restlessness into the response that has not +yet been made. But the moment the poet no longer spoke to the crowd, no +longer to a circle, but fashioned his words for print and writing, a new +and peculiar sensation was developed in him. He accustomed himself to +speaking only for himself; to conceiving his own feeling as important, +irrespective of effect and force; to holding a conversation with none +but himself and silence. And his poem changed more and more. Now that +the poet no longer had the panting roar of the response, the cry of +passion, the exultation of enthusiasm, as the finale of his poetry—the +last accord, as it were, belonging to his own music—he sought to +complete the harmony in the verse by means of itself. He rounded his +poem with an artist's care, as though it were an earthenware vessel; +illumined it with colours like a picture; rilled it with music; more and +more he relinquished the idea of persuading, of convincing,.of +inspiring. He was content that the poem should have no feeling for other +men, and gave it only the life and the mood of his own world. In that +period of transition, we may suppose, 'poetic' diction first came into +being, that language by the side of the living language which petrified<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> +more and more as time went on into a dialect hostile to the world, into +bloodless marble. Of old, the poetic language was not one that existed +side by side with the real language; it was only the last +intensification of the real language. By the rhythm of higher passion, +by the fire of harangue, it became a sacred fire, a blest intoxication, +a festivity in the work-a-day world. Thus, as intensified vitality, +language could be different without ever being unintelligible, could +remain with and yet above the people, while the lyric poetry of to-day +has become, for the most part, strange and worthless to active men who +live in the midst of realities, to the artisan and the toiler.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless in our own days there seem to be signs of a return to this +primitive close contact between the poet and his audience; a new pathos +is at its birth. The stage was the first bridge between the poet and the +multitude. But here the actor was still the intermediary of the spoken +word; the purely lyrical emotion was not an aim in itself, but only, for +three or four hours, a help in the illusion. However, the time of the +isolation of the poet from the crowd, which was formerly rendered +necessary by the great distances between nation and nation, seems now to +have been overcome by the shortening of space and by the +industrialisation of cities. To-day poets once again recite their verse +in lecture-halls, in the popular universities of America; nay, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> +churches Walt Whitman's lines ring out into the American consciousness, +and what used to be created only by the seething seconds of political +crises—one might instance Petöfi declaiming his national anthem 'Talpra +Magyar' from the steps of the university to the revolutionary +crowd—occurs almost every day. Now again as of old the lyric poet seems +entitled to be, if not the intellectual leader of the time, at least he +who must excite and quell the passions of the time; the rhapsodist who +hails, kindles, and fans that holy fire, energy. The world seems to be +waiting for Him who shall concentrate all life in a flash of lightning +to light up all the deeps of darkness:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Il monte—et l'on croirait que le monde l'attend,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Si large est la clameur des cÅ“urs battant</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">À l'unisson de ses paroles souveraines.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Il est effroi, danger, affre, fureur et haine;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Il est ordre, silence, amour et volonté;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Il scelle en lui toutes les violences lyriques.<a name="FNanchor_1_78" id="FNanchor_1_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_78" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Certainly the poem which would speak to the multitude must be different +to the kind of poem that pleased our fathers. Above all, it must itself +be a will, an aim, an energy, an evocation. All the technical +excellence, the sweet music, the craft of vibrating rhythms, suppleness +and flexibility of language, must, in the new poem, no longer be an aim +in themselves, but only a means to kindle enthusiasm. Such a poem must +no longer be a sentimental dialogue between a hermit and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> some other +hermit, a stranger somewhere far away; it must no longer be the short, +hurriedly trembling voice which is silenced ere the word's flame has +blazed up in it; no, this new poem must be strongly exulting, richly +inspired, with a far horizon for its goal, and rushing on with +irresistible impetuosity. It is not written for gentle moods, but for +loud, resonant words. He who would quell the crowd must have the rhythm +of their own new and restless life in him; he who speaks to the crowd +must be inspired by the new pathos. And this new pathos, this 'pathos +which most of all accepts the world as it is' (in Nietzsche's sense), +is, above all, zest, is the strength and the will to create ecstasy. +This poem must not be sensitive and woebegone; it must not express a +personal grief that seeks to enlist the sympathies of others; no, it +must be inspired by a fulness of joy, by the will to create from joy +itself passion that cannot be held down. Only great feelings bear the +message to the crowd; small feelings, which can only in silence, as in +motionless air, rise above the ground, are dashed down again. <i>The new +pathos must contain the will, not to set souls in vibration, not to +provide a delicate, æsthetic sense of pleasure, but to fire to a deed.</i> +It must carry the hearer along with it; it must once again collect in +itself the scattered forces of the poet of old time; it must in the poet +recreate, for an hour, the demagogue, the musician, the actor, the +orator; it must snatch the word<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> again off the paper into the air; it +must carefully entrust feeling as a secret treasure to the individual; +it must hurl this treasure into the surf of a multitude. Poems with such +a new pathos cannot be created by feeble, passive men, whose mood can be +changed at any minute by the world around them, but only by fighting +natures, who are governed by an idea, by the thought of a duty; who seek +to force their feeling on others; who elevate their inspiration to the +inspiration of the whole world.</p> + +<p>This new lyric pathos is in our days growing lustily into life again. +For centuries rhetoricians have been mocked at. The change of estimation +in Schiller's case from worship to sufferance is a lasting proof. And +let us remember that Nietzsche, the only German who in recent years has +influenced the world, was only able to do so by creating a new +rhetorical style—'I am the inventor of the dithyramb'—only by making +his <i>Zarathustra</i> a preacher's book which insistently requires a loud, +resonant voice. In France it was Victor Hugo who first recognised the +necessity of direct address. But he, who, as it happens, stands on that +narrowest boundary-line which separates genius from talent, he of whom +one can say that he was either the least of the eternal, monumental +poets or the greatest of the minor, the derivative poets, he confined +himself to France, he never thought of any but the French nation—as +Walt Whitman never thought of any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> but the American nation—and, above +all, he had not the high place whence to speak to his nation. He would +have been greater if he had really had the tribune whence his thunder +and lightning might have reached the multitude, instead of being always +only a sinister grumbling from the background of exile. Of all the +hundred volumes of his work perhaps nothing will remain except that +commanding gesture of an orator which Rodin has perpetuated in his +statue, and which is nothing else than the will to move to passion. He +has created this will to pathos, but not the pathos itself; still, even +the effort is a great and memorable achievement.</p> + +<p>Victor Hugo's inheritance, which was ill administered by chatterers and +chauvinists, by Déroulède and such poets with their big drums and their +trumpet-flourishes, has been taken over in France by Verhaeren. And he +is the first whose voice again reaches the crowd, the first French +realisation of a pathos which has absolutely the effect of art and +poetry. He more than any other, he whose deepest delight it is to quell +a grandiose resistance, he the <i>évocateur prodigieux</i>, as Bersaucourt<a name="FNanchor_2_79" id="FNanchor_2_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_79" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> +has called him, was entitled to the mastery of the living word. Whenever +I read a poem by Verhaeren, I am time after time astonished to find +myself, when I have begun by reading it to myself, suddenly forced to +read the words aloud; surprised to find myself reading<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> them louder and +louder; surprised to find in my hand, in my whole body, the urgent need +awakening of the gesture that hails and kindles an audience. For so +strong is the passionateness of the original feeling, the inner cry and +appeal in the words, that it forces its way through the reproduction, +rings out loudly even from the dead letters. <i>All the great poems of +Verhaeren are filled with the yearning to be spoken aloud, vehemently, +in the zest and glow of passion</i>. If they are recited softly, they seem +to be quite without melody; if they are read calmly and stolidly, they +often seem hard, uneven, and abrupt. Many images recur with a certain +regularity, many adjectives are repeated as petrified ideas—the trick +of an orator who emphasises what is important by standing +expressions—but the moment the poem is read aloud it is all alive +again, the repetitions are suddenly revealed as superb instances of +excitement reaching its mark, the recurring images take their place as +regular milestones along a road rushing along wildly to the infinite. +Verhaeren's poetry is the communication of an ecstasy, communication not +in the sense of a secret to an individual, but of fire cast to kindle a +crowd. His poems never seem to be quite completed, but to have been +first created while being read, just as every good and fiery speech +gives the impression of being improvised; they are always the unfolding +of a state, a passionate analysis that acts like a discovery.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> They are +moving, not harmonious. Just as an orator does not shock his audience at +the very first with the conclusion of his reasoning, but pays out the +chain of his arguments slowly and logically, Verhaeren builds his poems +from visions, first in repose, then in the excitement that intensifies, +and then with burning horizons foaming over more and more wildly in +images. And these images again are rhetorical; they are not similes +which can only be understood in their totality by the roundabout way of +reflection; they are glaring flashes of lightning. A poem that would +move those who hear it has need of metaphors which not only hit the mark +of feeling, but which hit it immediately with deadly effect. They must +be glaring, because they have to force the whole feeling in the +expression of one second as quick as lightning. In this way the pathetic +poem produces a new form of sensuous expression, and in this way too it +creates itself a new rhythm of intensification. First of all, with the +lightnings of his metaphors Verhaeren illuminates the vast landscape of +visions; then, by a certain monotony of rhythm, he intensifies the +astonishment and excitement to the highest ecstasy. Repeatedly, at the +breathing-spaces of his great poems, you think you have reached the +summit, only to be whipped to a higher leap, to a higher outlook. 'Il +faut en tes élans te dépasser sans cesse';<a name="FNanchor_3_80" id="FNanchor_3_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_80" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> this, his moral +commandment,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> is for him the highest poetical law as well. The deepest +will of his pathetic poem is to whip up, to set running, to snatch his +hearer along with him. 'Dites!' this summons which is like a gesture, +the urgent 'encore, encore!' are appeals which in his poems are +petrified into cries, just as every horseman has certain words to lure +the last strength from his horse. <i>Such words are nothing but transposed +oratorical gestures</i>. The hollow 'oh!' is the gesture of appeal; the +short 'qu'importe!' the gesture as of one who casts away a burden grown +too heavy; the slow, curving, far-sweeping 'immensément' is the heaping +up of all infinity. These poems are lashed into fever heat. For not only +do they themselves seek to fly like those other, the harmonious, the +really lyric poems, which with wings outspread seem to hover near the +clouds, they also seek to snatch up by force the whole heavy mass of the +audience. This is the explanation of the constant repetitions in the +poems, which are often very long, as though some last doubter were yet +to be convinced, as though fire were to be darted into the blood of some +last one yet immune. Everything strives forwards, forwards, dragging the +resister along with ecstatic power.</p> + +<p>And here are seen the dangers of pathos. The first danger, that into +which, for instance, Victor Hugo fell, was the emptiness, the hollowness +of the feeling, the covering over of a void by a mighty gesture; +enthusiasm resulting from a deliberate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> method, and not forced by inner +feeling. Empty phrasing is and remains the first danger of the pathetic +poem. The triteness of words 'plus sonores que solides'<a name="FNanchor_4_81" id="FNanchor_4_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_81" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> is the +second. Here, however, in this new pathos, there is another and a new +peril, that of the over-heating of feeling, that of excessive, unhealthy +exaltation, which must then of necessity yield to exhaustion. No man can +be in a constant fever of excitement, in an unremitting state of +exaltation. And in these poems there is the will to unceasing ecstasy. +By the pathos, too, the purely lyrical values of the poem often fall +into danger. The will to be clear often forces the poet to a triteness +of wording; the terseness necessitates frequent repetition; the impulse +to build up an organic ecstasy often leads to excessive length. Owing to +its glaring, clear colours the language loses that mystical element of +lyric verse—the incommensurable, as Goethe called it—that magic hint +of a secret thing fleeing from the crowd and the light of day. But at +the same time this pathos signifies an immense enrichment of lyric +resources, a transvaluation of the word, by the very fact that it is not +exclusively intended for print but for declamation as well. The pathetic +poem is not, like the lyric poem, a crystallised impression; it is not +at the same time question and answer to itself; it is the expectation of +an answer. The great pathos, therefore, grows with success, and +involuntarily<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> mingles in the poem the craving and the answer of the +poet's time. The voice of the poet is always as strong as the call that +goes out to him. Verhaeren found this new pathos in the course of his +development, because he no longer felt the voice of the crowd, of +cities, and of all the new things as a hindrance to his lyric poetry, +but as a challenge, as a rhetorical exhortation. And the more the world +around us becomes ponderous, grandiose, and passionate—the more it +becomes heroic in the concentration of its strength (heroic in that new +strength that Emerson preached)—so much the more, too, must lyric +poetry in the new sense, perhaps in Verhaeren's sense, be pathetic. +Gigantic impressions cannot be forced into petty impressions; vast +conceptions cannot be split up into mean fragments; a loud appeal needs +a loud answer. All art is more dependent than we are aware on its epoch. +The same secret dependence between demand and production seems to exist +in the sphere of art as exists in commerce. Laws that escape our +knowledge and cannot be prisoned in formulae can sometimes be glimpsed, +hazy as a presentiment, in fugitive intuition.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h5>FOOTNOTES:</h5> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_78" id="Footnote_1_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_78"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> 'Le Tribun' (<i>Les Forces Tumultueuses</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_79" id="Footnote_2_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_79"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Albert de Bersaucourt, <i>Conférence sur Emile Verhaeren.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_80" id="Footnote_3_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_80"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> 'L'Impossible' (<i>Les Forces Tumultueuses</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_81" id="Footnote_4_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_81"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Albert Mockel, <i>Émile Verhaeren.</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="VERHAERENS_POETIC_METHOD" id="VERHAERENS_POETIC_METHOD"></a>VERHAEREN'S POETIC METHOD</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Je suis celle des surprises fécondes.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 13em;">É.V., 'Celle des Voyages.'</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>A real poem must not exhibit an artificial structure of parts, a +mechanism; it must, like man himself, be organic, an indissoluble union +of soul and body. It must have a living body of flesh, the substance of +the word, the colour of the metaphors, the mechanism of the motion, the +skeleton of the thought; but over and above all that it must possess +that inexpressible something, the soul, which alone makes it organic; +the breath, the rhythm, that inseparable essence which is no longer +perceptible to intelligence, but only to feeling. It is not first in +this transcendental element, however, that the poet's personality is +revealed: the poetry of a great poet must be characteristic in its very +physis, in its very material. Side by side with that magic vibration, +that intangible element of feeling, the materiality too, the weaving of +the word, that net of expression in which the fugitive feeling is caught +in the waters of the hidden life and lifted into the light, these too +must be alone of their kind if they are to characterise the poet's race, +environment, and personality. This purely material organism of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> the poet +too is, like every living thing, subject to growth, to the change of +maturity and age. The structure of the poem, like every human face, must +gradually, in the revolution of the years, work its way to character +from the shifting features of childhood and the indistinctness of the +general type, must in its sensuous externals, in the physiognomy of the +material, show all psychic changes to the last acquisition of +personality. In a real poet the technical aspect, the handicraft, the +external element has a development that runs parallel to the +intellectual and poetic contents. In form, too, the poem must at first +represent a tradition, something that has been taken over; only in the +revolt of youth will it achieve a personal form, and this itself will +later, as it gradually grows cold and petrifies, represent an immutable +type.</p> + +<p>Verhaeren's poetry has its evolution and its history in this purely +formal sense. Even this poetry of Verhaeren's, which to-day looms so +immensely isolated and so victoriously characteristic in French +literature that a connoisseur can, without a shadow of doubt, recognise +the creator from a single stanza, has grown from a tradition, is the +climax of a certain culture, and is at the same time related to a +contemporary movement. When Verhaeren began to write, Victor Hugo, the +crowned king of French lyric poetry, was dead; Baudelaire was forgotten; +Paul Verlaine was still almost unknown. Victor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> Hugo's heirs, who +divided his kingdom as once the diadochi divided the kingdom of +Alexander the Great, were only able to preserve the trappings of the +glory gone, and the grandiloquence of their words contrasted ill with +their thin voices and artificial feelings. Against this circle, against +François Coppée, Catulle Mendès, Théodore de Banville and the rest of +them, rose up a new school of young men who called themselves 'decadents +and symbolists.' Here I must frankly admit that I am really unable to +explain this idea, perhaps for the very reason that I have read so many +varying definitions of it. The only thing that is certain is, that at +that time a group of young writers rose up in concert against a +tradition, and, in the most diverse experiments, sought a new lyrical +expression. What this new thing consisted in would be hard to say. The +truth is perhaps that all these poets were not French; that each of them +brought some new element from his own country, his own race, his own +past; that none of them felt that respect for the French tradition which +was in the blood of the native poets as an inward barrier, and thus were +able unconsciously to get nearer to their own artistic instinct. One +only needs to look at the names, which often at the first glance betray +the foreigner, the Americans Vielé-Griffin and Stuart Merrill, the +Belgians Verhaeren, Maeterlinck, and Mockel, or which, as in the case of +Jean Moréas, cover a complicated Greek name with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> a French pseudonym. +The only indisputable exploit of this group really was that about 1885 +they quickened the pace of French lyric poetry with a new unrest. +Mallarmé plunged his verses into a secret darkness of symbols, until the +words with their subterranean meaning almost became unintelligible, +while Verlaine gave his lines the dream-rapt lightsomeness of a music +never heard before. Gustave Kalm and Jules Laforgue were the first who +did away, the one with rhyme and the other with the Alexandrine, and +introduced the apparent irregularities of the <i>vers libre.</i> Each one did +his best on his own account to find something new, and all of them had +in common the same fiery eagerness to attack the idols of a derivative +poetry, the same ardent longing for a new form of expression. True, +their talent was soon choked up with sand, but that was because they +over-estimated the technical side of the innovations they introduced and +spent themselves in the investigation of theories, instead of developing +their own personalities. As time went on their paths diverged widely. +Many of them foundered in the sea of journalism; others are still, after +a lapse of twenty years, walking round in a circle in the footsteps of +their youth; and of the symbolists and decadents nothing is left but a +page or so of literary history, a faded sign-board marking an empty +shop. Verhaeren too was classed with them, although in my view he was +never essentially influenced by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> this school. A man of such sturdy +originality could not be more than stimulated by others, could not be +more than confirmed in his natural tendency to revolt. His attitude with +regard to the <i>vers libre</i> was by no means due to this influence. For it +was not by suggestion from others, not by the instinct of imitation, but +by inward necessity, that he discovered his new form. It was not the +example of others that freed him from the fetters of tradition; he was +forced to free himself from them of his own accord. This inner +compulsion is alone of importance; for it is a matter of complete +indifference whether a poet writes by chance in regular verse or in +<i>vers libres</i>; the phenomenon can only be significant when a poet is of +necessity and by inner pressure forced to free himself from tradition +and to achieve a personal form.</p> + +<p>It was as a Parnassian that Verhaeren began. His first poetical +attempts, which he has never published, the verses he wrote at school +and in his first years at the university, showed him hypnotised by the +style of Lamartine and Victor Hugo. And even in the first two books he +published, in <i>Les Flamandes</i> and <i>Les Moines</i>, there is not a single +poem in which Verhaeren has gone beyond his models. His poem is indeed +somewhat more mobile than the strict pattern of school exercises; it +already shows slight traces of the cracks which at a later day will +break the vessel to pieces. But this hint of insubordination<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> was at +that time necessitated more by the harshness and rebelliousness of the +subject itself, by some stiffness or other in the turn of the phrase, +which can only be explained by the fact of the poet's alien race. Even a +foreigner can recognise that the verse is not rounded off, that the +rhythm is not balanced with the natural inevitable sense of form that a +man of Latin race would have, but that here a forceful will is with +difficulty constraining a barbaric temperament to harmony. Through his +French one can hear the massive language of his race, something of the +unwieldy strength we have in our old German ballads. And what his name +at the first glance betrayed—the foreigner—was to the finer ear of a +native easily perceptible from his French alone.</p> + +<p>The farther Verhaeren proceeded in his development—the nearer he got to +his real nature—the more the inheritance of his race in him revolted +against the shackles of tradition—so much the more intensive became the +impression of the Teutonic element in his verse. After all, development +is in most cases nothing more than the awakening in us of our buried +past. The highest demand of the Parnassian school, <i>impassibilité,</i> an +immovableness as of bronze, is the antithesis of his stormy temperament, +which drives him along to a wild rhythm, not to harmony. Deep, guttural +notes vibrate in his verses, and make the song of his vowels rough; the +angularity, the masculinity, abruptness, and hardness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> of his peasant's +nature peer through everywhere. In addition to this, there is now the +inner transformation. So long as Verhaeren's poetic tendency was merely +pictorial, one that calmly and without excitement aimed at painting the +passion of the Flemish people, the earnestness of monasteries, just so +long did the Alexandrine best serve to divide the rhythmic waves of his +inspiration and roll them along. But when his personal sympathy began to +confuse the inner indifference of his first work, his verse became +uneasy. The cracks in the Alexandrine became more and more perceptible; +greater and greater in the poet grew his impatience of it and his desire +to smash it. He is no longer satisfied with the <i>vers ternaire</i>, the +verse of the Romanticists with its two cæsuras dividing the line into +three parts of perfectly equal rhythm and weight; he takes the free +Alexandrine introduced by Victor Hugo and develops it still further, +makes it still more irregular. He gives the syllables a different +quantity, a different sonority; they no longer rest, they rock to and +fro. And gradually the earnest, immovable uniformity of accentuation is +changed into a more billowing, rhythmic fluidity. But ere long this +concession too becomes too trivial for him. A temperament so impetuous +as his will endure no outward fetter whatever. For it is not repose that +this fiery singer would describe, but his own excited state—the +quivering and vibrating of his emotion, his febrile<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> unrest. His great +manifold feeling, which is nothing else than a modulated cry, cannot +storm itself out in regular verse; it needs unquiet gestures, motion, +freedom, the <i>vers libre</i>. The fact that at this time other poets in +France were using the free verse, the fact that it was at that +time—several dispute the priority—'invented' for poets, is of no +consequence to us here. Such contemporaneous incidences never express a +chance, but always a latent necessity. Free verse was nothing else than +the inevitable reflex action of modern feeling, the poetic breaking free +of the unrest which lay in the time. Whether or not Verhaeren at that +time had models is of no importance. What has been taken over can never +become organic, only what comes from personal experience is a real gain. +And at that time it lay quite in the line of his development that by +inner necessity he was forced to break his old instrument and create +himself a new one. For the nervous unrest, the passionate agitation of +Verhaeren's later poems is unthinkable in regular verse. If verse is to +describe in its own inner passion the immense multiplicity of modern +impressions—their haste, their fire, their precipitous revulsion, their +unexpectedness, their gloomy melancholy, and the overwhelming vastness +of their dimensions—it must be strong and yet flexible, like a rapier. +Such poems must be emancipated from rules: they must stride along like a +real crowd, noisily seething; they must<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> not walk in step, like soldiers +on the march. And if they are to be spoken, they must not be recited in +the stiff, cold, pathetically vibrating, self-conscious declamation of +the Comédie Française; they must be spoken as though to a crowd; they +must cry out, they must hail; and this-whipping up of an audience cannot +be harmonious. These poems must be spontaneous and impulsive.</p> + +<p>Manifold is the diversity which Verhaeren's poetry has achieved by its +deliverance from the monotony of the Alexandrine. Now and now only can +the verse reproduce the plastic side of an impression and the inward +agitation of it; not only by a pictorial description, but in a purely +external manner too; by the sound, by the music of the rhythm. The +lines, sometimes darting far beyond the margin, sometimes, like an +arrow, sharpened to a single word, have the whole key-board of feeling. +They can pace with a grave step like long black funeral processions, if +haply they would express the monotony of solitude, 'Mes jours toujours +plus lourds s'en vont roulant leur cours';<a name="FNanchor_1_82" id="FNanchor_1_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_82" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> they can dart up like a +falcon, white and glittering, soaring to the exulting cry 'la joie,' +swift and as high as heaven over all the sad heaviness of earth. All the +voices of day and night can now be represented onomato-poetically: all +that is brusque and sudden by brevity; all that is ponderous and +grandiose by a vast sweep of fulness; an unexpected thing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> by sudden +harshness; haste in a feverishly accelerated movement; savagery by a +precipitous change of velocity. Every line can now express the feeling +by its rhythm alone. And one might without knowing French recognise the +poetical intention of many of these poems merely by listening to their +consonantal music, nay, often by looking at their typographical +arrangement.</p> + +<p>For this reason I should be tempted to call these poems with their vast +range <i>symphonic</i> poems. They seem to have been conceived for an +orchestra. They are not, like the poetry of a past generation, chamber +music; they are not solitary violin <i>soli</i>; they are an inspired +blending of all instruments; they are graded in individual sections +which have a different <i>tempo</i> and the pauses of the transitions. In +Verhaeren's poetry the lyric exceeds the bounds of its domain and +impinges on the dramatic and the epic. For his poem seeks not only to +describe a mood, like a purely lyrical poem, it describes at the same +time the birth of this mood. And this first part of the construction is +epic; it is descriptive; it leads up from a lowly beginning to a great +discharge of force. And, in the second place, the transitions are +dramatic, those bursts of temperament from section to section, those +precipitous falls and steep ascents which only at the end lead to a +harmonious solution. From a purely external point of view Verhaeren's +poem is more extensive, longer, of a greater range than any other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> +contemporary poetry; it shoots out farther beyond the limit of lyric +poetry; and, careless of the boundary-line of æsthetics, it derives +strength and nourishment from neighbouring domains. It comes nearer to +rhetoric, nearer to epic poetry, nearer to the drama, nearer to +philosophy than any other poetry of our day; it is more independent of +set rules than poetry had been hitherto. And independent of rules—or +obeying only a new inner rule—is Verhaeren's form. Now, since the page +no longer holds the fettered lines together in equal columns, the poet +can write out his wild, overflowing feelings in their own wild, boldly +curving lines. Verhaeren's poem at this time—and that which is achieved +in the years of maturity remains inalienable—has its own inner +architectonics. But it can hardly be compared to a piece of +architecture, a structure built with hands; it is rather like a +manifestation of nature. It is elementary like every feeling; it +discharges itself like a storm. First a vision moves up like a cloud; +more and more densely it compresses itself; more and more sultrily, more +and more oppressively it weighs on the feeling; higher and higher, +hotter and hotter grows the inner tension, until at last in the +lightning of the images, in the rolling of the rhythm, all the garnered +strength discharges itself rhythmically. The andante always grows to a +furioso; and only the last section shows again the clear, cleansed sky +of calm, in an intellectual synthesis of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> the state of chaos. This +structure of Verhaeren's poem is almost invariable. It may be seen, for +instance, in two parallel examples: in the poems 'La Foule' and 'Vers la +Mer' in the book <i>Les Visages de la Vie</i>. Both set in with an +adjuration, a vision. Here the crowd, its confusion, its strength; there +a sensitive picture of the morning sea whose transparent tones remind +one of Turner. Now the poet fires this still vision with his own +passionateness. You see the crowd moving more and more restlessly, the +waves surging more and more passionately; and ecstasy breaks out the +moment the poet surrenders himself to these things, places himself among +the crowd, sinks his feeling, his body in the sea. Then in the finale +bursts forth the great cry of identity, in the one case the yearning to +be all the crowd, in both that ecstatic gesture of the individual +yearning for infinity. The first picture, which was only sensuously +seen, grows at the end of the poem into a great ethic inspiration; from +the vision is unfolded an unconquerable moral and metaphysical need. +This form of intensification from individual feeling to universal +feeling is the basic form of Verhaeren's poem. It might be best, in +order to convey a clear idea of its form, to use a geometrical term and +say that these poems are, to a certain extent, <i>poems in the form of a +parabola.</i> While the lyric in the current sense mostly represents a +symmetrical and harmonious form, a return to itself, a circle, +Verhaeren's poem has the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> form of a parabola, apparently irregular but +really equally governed by a law. His poems soar in a swift sustained +flight, soar from the earth up into the clouds, from the real to the +unreal, and then from a sudden zenith fling themselves back to the +earth. The inspiration drives the feeling away from the pictorial, from +passionless contemplation to this utmost height of possibility, far away +from all sensuous perceptions high into the metaphysical, in order then, +suddenly and unexpectedly, to bring it back to the <i>terra firma</i> of +reality. And indeed, in the music of these poems there is something as +of a darting upwards, something of the hissing and whizzing of a stone +well thrown and of its sudden falling down. In their rhythm too is this +increasing velocity, this catching of the breath and this return to the +starting-point, this bethinking itself of gravity when it returns to the +earth.</p> + +<p>Something may now be said as to the means with which Verhaeren attains +his vision, with which he seeks to represent the inner passionateness of +things, with which he evokes enthusiasm. Let us first of all try to +establish whether Verhaeren is what is called a master of language. +Verhaeren's command of language is not by any means unlimited. Both in +his words and in his rhymes there is constant repetition which sometimes +borders on monotony; but on the other hand there is a strangeness, a +newness, an unexpectedness of wording which is almost unexampled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> in +French lyric poetry. An enrichment of the language, however, does not +proceed from neologisms alone; a word may become alive by the +unexpectedness of a new application, by a transposition of the meaning, +as Rainer Maria Rilke, for instance, has often done in the German lyric. +To redeem 'die armen Worte, die im Alltag darben,'<a name="FNanchor_2_83" id="FNanchor_2_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_83" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> and consecrate +them anew to poetry, is perhaps a higher merit than creating new words. +Now Verhaeren has above all, by the Flemish sense of language which he +inherited, imported a certain Belgian timbre into French lyric poetry. +Personally, it is true, he is almost ignorant of Flemish; nevertheless, +by the vague music familiar to him from his childhood's days, by a +certain guttural tone, he has imported a nuance which is perhaps less? +perceptible to the foreigner than to a Frenchman. At this point I should +like to call Maurice Gauchez as a witness and borrow the most salient +examples from his extraordinarily interesting monograph. Among the +neologisms for which Gauchez suggests a foreign origin he quotes the +following: les baisers rouges, les plumes majuscules, les malades +hiératiques, la statue textuelle, les automnes prismatiques, le soir +tourbillonaire, les solitudes océans, le ciel dédalien, le cÅ“ur +myriadaire de la foule, les automnes apostumes, les vents vermeils, les +navires cavalcadeurs, les gloires médusaires.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> And he rightly points out +how much certain of Verhaeren's verbs might enrich the French language: +enturquoiser, rauquer, vacarmer, béquiller, s'enténébrer, se futiliser, +se mesquiniser, larmer. But I for my part cannot look upon the +enrichment here accruing from racial instinct as the essential thing in +his verbal art: it only gives it a local colour, without really +explaining what is astonishingly modern in his diction. Verhaeren has +been a great creator of new things for the French lyric, above all by +his extension of its range of subjects, by his renewal of poetic +reality, by recruiting new forces for poetry in the domain of technical +science. <i>The great part of the new blood for his language came not so +much from Flemish as from science</i>. A man who writes poems on the +Exchange, on the theatre, on science, who sings factories and railway +stations, cannot ignore their terminology. He must borrow certain +technical expressions from the vocabulary of science, certain +pathological terms from medicine; he must extend the glossary of the +poetic by the extension of the poetic itself. There are geographical +surprises of rhyme to be found in Verhaeren: Berlin and Sakhalin, +Moscow, the Balearic and other distant islands whose names have never +previously lived in rhyme. And since science is by its own progress +compelled to invent new names every day, since new machines demand new +words for their necessities, here for the first time an inexhaustible<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> +source has been discovered for replenishing the French language.</p> + +<p>This immense wealth, on the other hand, is jeopardised by something that +might be called not so much poverty or restriction as fascination. Every +one-sidedness of feeling produces, with its advantages, certain defects, +and thus the constant passionateness which brought Verhaeren's poetry +near to oratory, to preaching, is at the same time responsible for a +certain monotony of the metaphors. Verhaeren is hallucinated by certain +words, images, adjectives, phrases. He repeats them incessantly through +all his work. All things in which a many-headed passion is united he +compares with a 'brasier'; 'carrefour' is his symbol for indecision; +'l'essor' is for him the last straining of effort; many cries and words +by which he hails his audience are repeated almost from page to page. +The adjectives too are often monotonous; often indeed, with the cold +'iques' at the end of them, they are schematic; and even in the +metaphors that phenomenon is unmistakable which in science is called +pseudoanæsthesia, that is, the memory of a fixed feeling from the domain +of some other sense is always individually associated with a certain +colour or sound. For him 'red' expresses all that is passionate; 'gold' +all greatness and pomp; 'white' all that is gentle; 'black' all enmity. +His images have thus something abrupt and absolute; there is always<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> in +them, as Albert Mockel has demonstrated in his masterly study, the +decisive, the sudden excitement, which overwhelms our astonishment. His +images are as violent as his colours, as his rhythm. They have the +suddenness of a cannon-ball which darts through space and is only +perceptible to our vision when it reaches its aim and smashes the +target. Possibly the inmost reason of this lies in the fact that these +poems are intended to be spoken. A placard that is to have effect at +some distance must be in glaring colours; pathos calls for images that +hallucinate. Such images have indeed been found by Verhaeren, and by +Verhaeren only. He hardly seems to know nuances. With the brutal +instinct of a strong man he loves all that is glaring, all that is +untrammelled. 'La couleur, elle est dans ses Å“uvres une surprise de +métaux et d'images.'<a name="FNanchor_3_84" id="FNanchor_3_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_84" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> But in this material they blaze, and with their +lightnings they light up even the most distant horizon. I will only +remind the reader of his 'beffrois immensément vêtus de nuit' or 'la +façade paraît pleurer des lettres d'or,' or his 'les gestes de lumière +des phares.' By the intensity of such images Verhaeren attains to quite +an incomparable clearness of the feeling. 'Personne, je crois, ne +possède à l'égal de Verhaeren le don des lumières et des ombres, non +point fondues, mais enchevêtrées, des noirs absolus coupés de blanches +clartés.'<a name="FNanchor_4_85" id="FNanchor_4_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_85" class="fnanchor">[4]</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p> + +<p>One-sidedness of temperament here produces a one-sided advantage with +all its artistic restrictions. So that Verhaeren is not a verbal artist +in the unrestricted sense of one who always hits upon the only, the +inevitable comparison for a thing; of one who flashes a bold word on the +attention once and never retails it till it palls, who seems to use +every word for the first time. His poetic vocabulary is rich, but by no +means infinite; his sensibility is strong, but it has its restrictions. +For, as is the case with every passionate poet, certain feelings at the +last white-heat of excitement appear to him identical, seem to him to be +capable of comparison only with the quite elementary things of Nature, +with fire, the sea, the wind, thunder and lightning. To make the point +clear, Verhaeren is not a verbal artist in Goethe's sense, but rather in +Schiller's sense. With the latter, too, he has the gift in common of +definitely expressing certain perceptions in one lyric line. He has +discovered essences of the lyric feeling of life, lines that are now +household words, or which at all events will be so. It will be +sufficient to mention word formations such as 'les villes +tentaculaires,' which in France have already become common-places, or +such maxims as 'La vie est à monter et non à descendre,' or 'Toute la +vie est dans l'essor.' In lines like these the lyric ecstasy is +compressed as in a coin, and perpetuated in the current riches of the +language.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p> + +<p>This hardness and brutality, these abrupt transitions, constitute the +individuality of Verhaeren's poetry. At bottom it is nothing else than +an accentuated masculinity. The voice, the music, is guttural, deep, +raucous, masculine; the body of his poem has, like a man's body, the +beautiful movement of strength, but in repose gestures that are often +hard and which only in passion regain their compelling beauty. Whereas +French lyric poetry, so to speak, had imitated the female body, the +delicate grace of its soft yielding lines; whereas its first concern was +harmony; Verhaeren's poem strove only for the rhythm of movement, only +for the proud and vigorously ringing stride of a man, his leaping and +running, the fighting display of his strength. This is not the only +reason why the French have so long repudiated him. For where we delight +in an echo from the German in his language, they feel the harshness of +the Teutonic undertone; where we find a consonance with the German +ballad, a re-birth of the German ballad as though it were awakening from +the dreams of childhood, they see an opposition to the native tradition. +And in fact, the farther Verhaeren has proceeded in his development, +both in his personality and in his verse, the more the French varnish +has peeled off his Teutonic perception. It was only in the time of his +first dependence on tradition that his poetry was hardly to be +distinguished from that of other writers in French.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> The farther he +receded from the French standpoint, the more he unconsciously approached +German art. To-day, perhaps, a return to classicism is perceptible in +his poetry. The neologisms are not so audacious; the images are more +schematic; the whole poem is calmer and more clarified. This, however, +is by no means a cowardly compromise with a shattered tradition, no +repentant return to the fold; it is the same phenomenon we meet in a +similar manner in the late poems of Goethe, Schiller, Hugo, and +Swinburne; the effect of the cooling of the blood in age; the yielding +of sensuous perception to intellectual ideas. The victor has lost the +fighter's brutality; the man in his maturity no longer needs revolt but +a conception of the world—harmony. Here, as in Verhaeren's whole +evolution, his verse is the most delicately sensitive indicator of the +psychic revulsion, the perfect proof of a poetic and organic development +which is really inward and dependent only on the laws of his blood.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h5>FOOTNOTES:</h5> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_82" id="Footnote_1_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_82"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> 'L'Heure Mauvaise' (<i>Au Bord de la Route</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_83" id="Footnote_2_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_83"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> 'Poor words a-hungered in the working day.'—Rainer Maria +Rilke, <i>Mir sur Feier.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_84" id="Footnote_3_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_84"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Albert Mockel, <i>Émile Verhaeren</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_85" id="Footnote_4_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_85"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> (<i>Ibid.</i>).<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="VERHAERENS_DRAMA" id="VERHAERENS_DRAMA"></a>VERHAEREN'S DRAMA</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Toute la vie est dans l'essor.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 11em;">É.V., <i>Les Forces Tumultueuses.</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Émile Verhaeren's dramas seem to stand outside his work. Verhaeren is +essentially a lyric poet. His whole feeling springs from lyric +enthusiasm, and all neighbouring domains are merely sources whose +strength flows into and feeds this one vital instinct. Verhaeren has +almost always used the dramatic and the epic only as a means, never as +an end in themselves: from the epic he has taken over into the vast +sweep of his dithyrambic poems its broad, calm development, and from the +drama the swift, abrupt contrast of transitions. The dramatic and the +epic only serve him as a tonic, as a means to strengthen the blood of +his lyric art. Although Verhaeren beside his lyric work has written +dramas—four up to the present—these, in the edifice of his complete +production, must be appreciated from a different point of view: from an +architectural point of view. For the dramas are to him, in a certain +sense, only a survey, a concentration of individual lyric crises, a +synopsis of certain ideal complexes which have occupied some moment of +his past; they are final settlements;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> the last point in lines of +development; milestones of individual epochs. All that in the lyric +poems, which never systematically bounded a domain, fell apart, is here +made to converge to the focus of a programme. The lyric juxtaposition is +fused into an inner relationship, the circle of ideas is co-ordinated +like a picture in the frame of a play. Verhaeren's four tragedies +represent four spheres of a conception of the universe: the religious, +the social, the national, and the ethical. <i>Le Cloître</i> is a re-creation +of the book of verse <i>Les Moines</i>, is the tragedy of Catholicism; <i>Les +Aubes</i> is a condensation of the sociological trilogy <i>Les Villes +Tentaculaires, Les Campagnes Hallucinées, Les Villages Illusoires. +Philip II.</i> shapes the tragedy of the Antichrist, the contrast of Spain +and Belgium, of sensuality and asceticism. And <i>Hélène de Sparte</i>, which +in its outward form manifests a return to classicism, handles purely +moral, eternal problems. As far as their contents are concerned, +Verhaeren's dramas show no deviation, no change of the inner centre of +gravity, and his new dramatic style is in perfect harmony with his new +lyric style. For just as on the one hand he has used the dramatic +element as a substance of his lyric work, here in his dramas he has +transmuted the lyric element to a dramatic element. Here, too, we have +nothing but visions intensified into exaltation. Here, as everywhere +else, Verhaeren can only create by enthusiasm. What goads him on is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> the +lyric moment in his enthusiasm, that second of the highest tension when +passion, if it is not to shatter the frame of its generator, must have +explosive words. The characters of his dramas are never anything but +symbols of great passions, the bridge for this ascension of the +exaltation. To him the action is no more than the way to the crises, to +those seconds when some mighty force seizes on these characters and +forces them to cry out. Whole scenes seem to be only awaiting for the +moment when some one shall rise and turn to the crowd, wrestle with it +and overthrow it, or be himself dashed to pieces.</p> + +<p>The style of Verhaeren's dramas is purely lyrical; the pace is +throughout passionate and feverish; and this method, which runs counter +to all dramatic canons, was bound organically to create a new technique. +The French drama had hitherto known only the rhymed Alexandrine or +prose. In Verhaeren's dramas—for the first time to my knowledge—prose +and verse (verse which is 'free' both as regards rhythm and rhyme) are +throughout promiscuously mixed. Mixed, but not as in Shakespeare, in +whose plays verse and prose alternate in individual scenes and +establish, so to speak, a social stratification, serving-men speaking in +prose and their masters in verse: in Verhaeren the prose passages are +the broad, resting foundations of the action; the curved bowls, so to +speak, from which the holy fire of the exaltation flames. His +characters<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> express their calm in prose, pass from calm to excitement, +and in this intensification speak a language which imperceptibly merges +into a poem. Not till their passion breaks out do they speak in verse, +in those seconds, as it were, when their soul begins to vibrate; and in +these passages one cannot help thinking of an aeroplane which is first +driven along the ground and moves with ever greater speed till suddenly +it soars aloft. In Verhaeren's drama the characters speak an ever purer +language the more poetical they become; music breaks with their passion +from their souls; just as many people who behave coarsely and awkwardly +in ordinary life, in great moments suddenly achieve a bearing of heroic +beauty. This embodies the idea that in enthusiasm a man discovers in +himself another and a purer language; that passion and the yearning to +free oneself from an immeasurable and intolerable earthly burden make a +poet of any man. This idea is in harmony with Verhaeren's whole +conception of the universe, his idea that the man swept away by passion +and enthusiasm is on a higher plane than the critic with his lack of hot +feeling; that receptivity for great sensations constitutes, so to speak, +a scale of moral values. And the stage performances have shown that this +new style is justified, that the transition from prose to verse, +occurring as it does contemporaneously with the ascension from calm to +passion, passes practically unnoticed by the audience,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> which is +equivalent to saying that when put to the test the method was recognised +as necessary.</p> + +<p>And it is by passion, this innermost flame of Verhaeren's poetry, that +his dramas live too. Their qualities are those of the lyrics; they have, +above all, that vast power of vision which sets <i>Philip II</i>. against the +tragic landscape of Spain; over the drama of Helen arches the heaven of +Greece, blue, and mild, and open like a flower; and behind the tragedy +of modern cities unrolls the inflamed scenery of the sky with the black +arms of chimneys. And then the immense fervour of the ecstasy which, not +in a slow, regular progression, but in savage, convulsive thrusts, +whirls the action onward to the moments of the solution.</p> + +<p>Thus Verhaeren's first drama derives its strength from the lyric source +of a man's accusation of himself. <i>Le Cloître</i> is a paraphrase of <i>Les +Moines</i>, the book of the monks. Here again all the characters are +gathered together in the cool corridors of a monastery—the gentle, the +wild, the feudal, the wrathful, the childlike, the learned monk; here, +however, they do not act in isolation, but with all their strength the +one against the other. They fight for the prior's chair, which is really +the symbol of something higher. For just as in <i>Les Moines</i> every +individual monk expressed symbolically some virtue of Catholicism and a +distinct idea of God, here the prior's chair decides the question who is +the most deserving of God.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> For his successor the old prior has +designated Balthasar, a nobleman whom the monastery has sheltered for +years. But he had only taken refuge there because he had killed his own +father, thus escaping secular justice, and now he feels the +consciousness of his guilt burning, feels the exasperated struggle +between his own conscience and the lighter conscience of the others, who +have long since forgiven him. And he cannot feel himself free before he +has made his confession before the assembled monks, and even then only +when he has repeated the confession, against the will of the monastery, +to the people, and surrendered himself to the secular judges. The Roman +Catholic idea of confession is here wonderfully in agreement with +Dostoieffsky's conception of salvation by confession, of deliverance by +suffering self-imposed. In three climaxes of equal force at the end of +each of the three acts the tragic confession bursts into flame—first +born of fear, then of a sense of justice, and at the last positively +conceived as a pleasure; and here in these superb lyric ecstasies rest +the strong pinions which bear the tragedy.</p> + +<p>In the second, the social tragedy <i>Les Aubes,</i> the scenario is the +present time. It has the purple scenery of <i>Les Villes Tentaculaires</i>, +of the cities with the arms of polypi, which drain the blood of the poor +dying country. Beggars, paupers, those who are starving, those who have +been evicted, march to Oppidomagnum, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> modern industrial city, and +besiege it. It is the past once again storming the future. In the +lyrical trilogy this struggle had been shaped in a hundred visionary +instances; here, however, the bright sky of reconciliation is arched +above the battle-field, over the realities hovers the dream. For here +the future joins hands with the present. The great tribune, Hérénien, +breaks the backbone of this battle and shows himself the hero of a new +morality by secretly admitting the enemy into the city—in the old sense +the action of a traitor—by yielding and thus transforming the struggle +into a reconciliation. He is the tragic bearer of the moral idea that +enmity may be overcome by goodness, and he falls as the first martyr of +his faith. Verhaeren's social conception, his superb description of +realities, here merge slowly in a Utopia; the dawns of the new days +begin to shine above the pasts that are dead; the din of rebellion fades +away in harmony. This drama, like the others, is far remote from the +possibilities of the majority of theatres, because of the fact that here +too an ethical idea is expressed with all the glow and ecstasy which as +a rule in modern dramas is only found in the utterance of erotic desire.</p> + +<p>The third tragedy, <i>Philip II</i>., is a national drama, although its scene +is not laid in Flanders. Much as Charles de Coster in his <i>Thyl +Ulenspiegel</i> had, with a Fleming's deadly hatred, seen in Philip II. the +hereditary enemy of liberty,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> Verhaeren, who with the lyric poetry of +his <i>Toute la Flandre</i> became the representative singer of his native +land, painted this gloomy figure with hatred. Philip II. is here, as in +<i>Thyl Ulenspiegel,</i> the hard, inflexible king who would fain put life +out because it burns too red for him, who wishes to have the world as +cool and marble-like as the chambers of the Escorial. Here of a sudden +the reverse side of Roman Catholicism, whose passion was immortalised in +<i>Le Cloître</i>, is rent open; its pitilessness and asceticism; its +obstinate effort to overthrow the irrefragable joy of life. Don Carlos, +however, is the fervent friend of the people, the friend of Flanders; he +is the will to enjoyment, to merry moods, to passion. And this struggle +between the 'yes' and the 'no' of life, this fight of Verhaeren's own +lyric crisis, this fight between the denial and the passionate approval +of enjoyment—at bottom, toe, the deepest cause of the war between Spain +and the Netherlands—is here symbolised in characters. Of course, any +comparison with Schiller's <i>Don Carlos</i> must tell against Verhaeren, for +the German drama is far more dramatic and conceived on a scale of +greater magnificence; but Verhaeren did not aim at a complete rounding +off, at a plenitude of characters; all that he wanted was to show these +two feelings in their struggle with each other, the enthusiasm of life +and its suppression by force. A comparison with Schiller's drama best +shows Verhaeren's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> disregard of dramatic canons, and at the same time +the immense new lyric power of the play. For Spain is here seen with a +strength and intensity of vision which is probably without a parallel in +tragedy. The cold, hypocritical atmosphere can be felt; and better than +from words the character of Philip can be perceived in that one silent +scene in which he suddenly appears stealthily creeping to watch his son +in the arms of the countess, and then, without a gleam in his rigid +eyes, without the slightest movement of anger, vanishes again into the +dark. Behind him, however, behind the spy and the eavesdropper, glides +another shadow, the monk of the Inquisition: the eavesdropper is himself +shadowed, the ruler is himself ruled. Visions like these, with the +ecstasy of certain scenes, are the strongest motive power in Verhaeren's +poetic construction. His dramatic art, like the art of his lyrics, does +not rise in a steady ascent, but in sudden wild leaps and starts.</p> + +<p>Only in his last drama, <i>Hélène de Sparte</i>, has Verhaeren come nearer to +the accepted conception of the dramatic. That is characteristic of his +organic development. For now that he is in the years when passion of +necessity cools, harmony grows dear to him; and he who through all the +years of his youth and prime was a revolutionary, now recognises the +necessity of inner laws. By its mere intellectual substance this tragedy +expresses the veering round: it is nothing else<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> than the longing from +passion to harmony, Helen's flight from adventures to repose. And the +return is to be found again in the verse, for Verhaeren here for the +first time takes up the traditional French metre; his form, though yet +free, approaches the Alexandrine. The tragedy of Helen is the tragedy of +beauty. Helen is one of those antique characters who in Greek literature +were only sketched in fleeting lines, characters whom a modern poet is +now entitled to fill in with his own fate. For from the Greek sources we +really knew nothing about her personal fate; we only knew the effect she +exercised, only the reflection of her personality on others, not that of +others on her. She was the queen who inflamed all men; who was the cause +of great wars; the woman for whose sake murder on murder was committed; +who was snatched from one bed to another; for love of whom Achilles +arose from the dead; who passed her life circled by disastrous passion. +But whether she herself shared these passions, whether she grew by them +or suffered by them, the poets tell us nothing. Verhaeren in his drama +has now attempted to depict the tragedy of the woman who endures fearful +suffering because she is always desired in lust and no more; who is +consumed by the torture of being ever robbed from lover by lover; of +never knowing the look of pure eyes, calm converse, quiet breathing; who +is cursed always to stand at the pyre of passion, with the flames<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> of +men always blazing round her. Whoever looks at her at once desires her, +snatches her; none waits and asks whether he serves her will; she is +robbed like a chattel; she glides from hand to hand. In Verhaeren's +drama Helen has returned home, a woman tired, tired of all unrest, of +all her triumphs, tired of love; a woman hating her own beauty because +it creates unrest, longing for nothing but old age, when none shall +desire her more and her days shall be calm. Menelaus has brought her +home, rescued her from all that stifling steam of criminal passion; now +she would breathe quietly, live calm days, and be faithful to him. She +desires no more than this. No passion can tempt her more. 'I have seen +the flaring of so many flames that now I love only the hearth's glow and +the lamp' is the expression of her poignant resignation. But fate will +not yet let her go. Verhaeren has here seized on the great idea of the +Greeks that everything that is superhuman on earth, every excessive +gift, even that of beauty, is pursued as a hybrid by the envy of the +gods, and must be paid for with pain. Too great beauty is no profit, but +a tragic gift. And hardly has Helen returned, to rest and be happy, to +be like everybody else, than new clouds roll themselves up above her +head. Her own brother desires her; her enemy Electra desires her; her +husband is murdered for her sake; and the old fearful battle threatens +to break out anew for the possession<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> of her body. Now she flees, away +from men, out into nature. And here again, with the vision of genius, +Verhaeren approaches Greek feeling. The forest is not dead to him, but +animate; life does not stop at human beings; fauns emerge from the +bushes, naiads from the rivers, bacchantes from the mountains, and all +swarm round Helen in her despair, luring her to their lust, till she +flees to Zeus in death.</p> + +<p>It is characteristic of Verhaeren that he has made even this tragedy, +the tragedy of Helen, anerotic, or better anti-erotic. Perhaps the +slight interest which has hitherto been manifested in Verhaeren's +dramas, and indeed partly in his whole work, may be ascribed to the fact +that, in comparison with the other poets of his day, he has held himself +aloof from erotic subjects, that the problem of love has only recently, +in the years of his maturity, begun to interest him as a theme for his +art. From the first Verhaeren concentrated all the passion which others +lavished on the erotic in purely intellectual things, in enthusiasm, in +admiration. In his dramas woman plays an almost subordinate rôle, and +<i>Le Cloître</i> is perhaps the only important drama of our days which does +not show a single woman among its characters and in its inner circle of +problems. By this fact alone his dramatic aim strays too far from the +interests of our public. For it is from a purely intellectual conflict +that Verhaeren seeks to disengage that height and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> heat of passion which +hitherto was known only in erotic themes; and therefore the exaltation +strikes the majority of an audience as strange, and leaves them unmoved. +All our contemporaries who seek art only in the theatre are too +indifferent and timid to be snatched up, for a purely ethical problem, +into an ecstasy so burning, so persistently lit with convulsive +lightnings. This is the only explanation I can find for the opposition +to Verhaeren's dramas, which are so full of beauty and of living, +dramatic, passionate situations, and which, above all, contain something +new, a new dramatic style. This very kindling of prose to verse was a +revelation. But the whole dramatic aim is different in Verhaeren to that +which obtains on the stage of to-day. His aim is not to excite interest, +not to produce fear and compassion, but enthusiasm. He does not wish to +occupy the minds of his audience, but to carry them away into his +rhythm. He wishes to make them drunk with his great excitement, because +only he who gazes in enthusiasm is capable of recognising these supreme +passions; he wishes to make the spectators as feverish as the characters +they see before them on the stage; he wishes to make their blood fiery; +wishes to raise them above all cool, calm, and critical contemplation. +His whole temperament, which drives along in the direction of +superabundance; his art, which only fulfils its purpose in ecstasy; +require impassioned actors and an impassioned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> audience. To create the +ideal atmosphere which Verhaeren demands for his dramas would require an +actor of kindred genius who should have no fear of being called +emotional, and who would hurl the verses down like cataracts, +emphasising like a demagogue and at the same time unfolding all the +magnificence of the rhythm. For the poet asks for nothing save a feeling +of enthusiasm corresponding to that which first created the poem in him. +His intention is not to convince by logic, not to dazzle by pictures, +but to whip up and carry along with him into that ultimate dizzy feeling +which to him is alone identical with the highest form of the feeling of +life—into passion.</p> + +<p>In Germany <i>Le Cloître</i>,<a name="FNanchor_1_86" id="FNanchor_1_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_86" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> as staged by Max Reinhardt, and again in the +Deutsches Volkstheater in Vienna, has conquered the interest of a +literary public and triumphed unreservedly over the obstacle of its own +strangeness. There has been an exemplary production of <i>Philip II.</i> in +the Munich Künstlertheater; <i>Hélène de Sparte</i> on the other hand has not +yet found the setting it demands. As bodied forth in Paris by Ida +Rubinstein, with decorations of a grandiose barbarism by Bakst, with a +ground-colouring of music, it was effective more by the external +magnificence of this somewhat sensationally advertised <i>mise en scène</i> +than by its poetic qualities,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> smothered as they were by the +accessories. A production which shall do justice to the play, leaving +its pure lyric line unbedizened with glaring arabesques, is still +waiting as a task for some actor-manager of genius who possesses that +highest and rarest quality of being able to subordinate himself to the +utterance, who is anxious not to ruin a noble simplicity by a spurious +plenitude.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h5>FOOTNOTES:</h5> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_86" id="Footnote_1_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_86"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> A version of <i>Le Cloître</i>, by Mr. Osman Edwards, was +successfully produced by Miss Horniman at the Gaiety Theatre in +Manchester in 1910.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p></div> + +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="PART_III" id="PART_III"></a>PART III</h3> + +<h3>COMPLETING FORCES</h3> + +<h4>LES VISAGES DE LA VIE—LES FORCES TUMULTUEUSES—LA MULTIPLE</h4> +<h4>SPLENDEUR—TOUTE LA FLANDRE-LES HEURES CLAIRES—LES HEURES</h4> +<h4>D'APRÈS-MIDI—LES HEURES DU SOIR-LES RYTHMES SOUVERAINS—LES BLÉS +MOUVANTS</h4> + +<h4>1900-1914</h4> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="COSMIC_POETRY" id="COSMIC_POETRY"></a>COSMIC POETRY</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 10.5em;">... Les vols</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Vers la beauté toujours plus claire et plus certaine.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 20em;">É.V., 'Les Spectacles.'</span><br /> +</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p> +<p>The poetic conquest of life represents, as it were, a process of +combustion. Every poet feeds the flame of his inner being, his artistic +passion, with the things of the world around him, transmutes them into +flame, and himself shoots on high and dies down with them. The more the +flame cools with the feebler circulation of the blood, the weaker grows +this fire, and gradually the pure crystals, the residue from this battle +of the inner flame with the things of reality, are separated from this +process of combustion. Verhaeren's work was in his youth and prime a +flame exceedingly hot, lawless, free, and flaring like the very years of +his youth and prime. Now, however, in the work of his fifties, now that +passion has cooled, the yearning is revealed to find the goal of this +passion, the inherent lawfulness of this unrest. Enthusiasm for the +present, poetic consumption of the world in visions without the residue +of philosophy and logical knowledge, no longer suffice him. For all +deeper contemplation of the present is unthinkable without an exceeding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> +of its limits: all that is, is at the same time something that has been +and something that will be. Nothing is so entirely the present that it +is not intimately connected with the past and the future. The eternal +and the permanent is the inward side of all phenomena. And the more the +poet turns his visions from the exterior, from the pictorial, to the +inner world, to psychology, the more he descends from external phenomena +to the roots of forces, the more he must apprehend the permanent behind +the transitoriness of things. No perception of a contemporary state is +fertile unless it is impregnated with the perception of laws that are +independent of time, unless the changing phenomena are recognised as +transformations of the unchangeable primordial phenomenon. This +transition from maturity to age, from contemplation to knowledge, +corresponds to a new artistic transition in the incomparably organic +development of this poet. A transition: no longer a re-formation, but a +formation which moves both forwards and backwards, which is at the same +time an evolution and a retrogression, just as the poetic form of +Verhaeren's poetry no longer undergoes a transformation, but is +petrified. What a man has acquired in the years of his prime is an +inalienable possession; its value can be further increased only by +knowledge, by the appraising of the possession. It may be said that a +man who has passed his prime experiences nothing new: the static +equilibrium is realised;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> what has been experienced is only the better +understood. The experience is no longer a struggle, no longer a state of +unrest, something that slips away; it is a possession. What passion has +fought for and won with a leap is now set in order and appraised at its +true value, by calm. This transition from youth to age is in Verhaeren, +to use Nietzsche's phrase, a transition from the Dionysiac to the +Apollinarian, from a plethora to harmony. His yearning is now <i>vivre +ardent et clair</i>, to live passionately, but at the same time clearly to +preserve his inner fire, but at the same time to lose his unrest. +Verhaeren's books in these years grow more and more crystalline; the +fire in them no longer blazes openly like a flaring pyre, but glitters +and sparkles as with the thousand facets of a precious stone. The smoke +and the unrest of the fire die down, and now the pure residues are +clarified. Visions have become ideas, the wrestling earthly energies are +now eternal immutable laws.</p> + +<p>The will of these last years, of these last works, is the will to +realise a cosmic poem. In the trilogy of the cities Verhaeren had laid +hold on the universe as it lies around us to-day; he had snatched it to +him and overcome it. In passionate visions he had shaped its image, +achieved its form, and now it stood beside the actual world as his own. +But a poet who would create the whole world for himself, the whole +infinite vista of its possibilities by the side of its actualities, must +give it everything:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> not only its form, not only its face, but its soul +as well, its organism, its origin, and its evolution. He must not merely +apprehend its pictorial aspect and its mechanical energy, he must give +it an encyclopædic form. He must create a mythology for it, a new +morality, a new history, a new system of dynamics, a new system of +ethics. Above it or in it he must place a God who acts and transforms. +He must fashion it in his poetry not only as something that is, not only +as something in the present, but as something that has been and is +becoming, something that is part and parcel of the past and of the +future too. It must ring out the old and ring in the new. And this will +to create a cosmic poem is to be found in Verhaeren's new and most +precious books—<i>Les Visages de la Vie, Les Forces Tumultueuses, La +Multiple Splendeur, Les Rythmes Souverains</i>—-books which by their mere +title announce the effort to include the dome of heaven in their vast +embrace. They are the pillars of a mighty structure, the great stanzas +of the cosmic poem. They are no longer a conversation of the poet with +himself and contemporary feeling; they are a pronouncement addressed to +all the ages. <i>S'élancer vers l'avenir</i> is the longing they express: a +turning away from all the pasts to speak to the future. The lyric +element in them steps beyond the boundary-line of poetry. It kindles the +neighbouring domains of philosophy and religion, kindles them to new +possibilities. For not only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> æsthetically would Verhaeren come to an +understanding with realities; not by poetry only would he overcome the +new possibilities; he would fain master them morally and religiously as +well. The task of these last and most important books of verse is no +longer to apprehend the universe in individual phenomena, but to impress +its new form on a new law. In <i>Les Visages de la Vie</i> Verhaeren has in +individual poems glorified the eternal forces, gentleness, joy, +strength, activity, enthusiasm; in <i>Les Forces Tumultueuses</i> the +mysterious dynamics of union shining through all forms of the real; in +<i>La Multiple Splendeur</i> the ethics of admiration, the joyous +relationship of man with things and with himself; and in <i>Les Rythmes +Souverains</i> he has celebrated the most illustrious heroes of his ideals. +For life has long since ceased to be for him mere gazing and +contemplation:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Car vivre, c'est prendre et donner avec liesse</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">...................avide et haletant</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Devant la vie intense et sa rouge sagesse!<a name="FNanchor_1_87" id="FNanchor_1_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_87" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Description, poetic analysis, has gradually grown into a hymn, into +'laudi del cielo, del mare, del mondo,' into songs of the whole world +and of the ego, and of the harmony of the world's beauty in its union +with the ego. The lyrical has here become cosmic feeling, knowledge has +become ecstasy. Over and above the knowledge that there cannot be +anything isolated, that everything<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> is arranged and obeys the last +uniform law of the universe, over and above this knowledge rises +something still higher—over the contemplation of the world rises faith +in the feeling of the world. The glorious optimism of these works ends +in the religious confidence that all contrasts will be harmonised; that +man will more and more be conscious of the earth; that every individual +must discover his own law of the world in himself, the law that makes it +possible for him to apprehend everything lyrically, with enthusiasm, +with joy.</p> + +<p>Here Verhaeren's poetry far exceeds the boundary-line of literature; it +becomes philosophy and it becomes religion. Verhaeren was from the very +first an eminently religious man. In his childhood Catholicism was the +deepest feeling of his life, but this Catholicism had perished in the +crises of his adolescence, his religious feeling had given way to the +rapt contemplation of all new things, to ecstasy inspired by the aspect +of life. But now, when Verhaeren returns to the metaphysical, the old +yearning is reawakened. The old gods are dead for him; Pan is dead, and +Christ too. Now he feels the need of finding a new faith, a new +certainty, a new God for the new sensation, this identity of I and +world. The new conflicts have created a longing in him for a new +equilibrium; his stormily religious feeling, determined to believe, +needs new cognition. The image of the world would be incomplete without<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> +the God who rules it. All his yearning goes out to this God, and it +finds its fulfilment. And this knowledge gives him the highest joy life +can have, the loftiest pride life can bestow:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Voici l'heure qui bout de sang et de jeunesse.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * +</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Un vaste espoir, venu de l'inconnu, déplace</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">L'équilibre ancien dont les âmes sont lasses;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6.5em;">La nature paraît sculpter</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">Un visage nouveau à son éternité.<a name="FNanchor_2_88" id="FNanchor_2_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_88" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>To chisel this new face of God is the aim of his last and most mature +works, in which the obstinate 'no' of his youth has become the loud +exulting 'yes' of life, in which the great possibilities of old have +become an unsuspected opulent reality.</p> + + + +<div class="footnotes"><h5>FOOTNOTES:</h5> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_87" id="Footnote_1_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_87"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> 'Un Soir' (<i>Les Forces Tumultueuses</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_88" id="Footnote_2_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_88"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> 'La Foule' (<i>Les Visages de la Vie</i>).<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="THE_LYRIC_UNIVERSE" id="THE_LYRIC_UNIVERSE"></a>THE LYRIC UNIVERSE</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Il faut aimer, pour découvrir avec génie.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 20em;">É.V., 'Un Soir.'</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>If one is to understand Verhaeren's lyric work as a work of art, it must +be kept in mind that he is a lyric poet, and a lyric poet only. A lyric +poet only, not, however, in the limited sense of one who confines +himself to the writing of lyric poems, but of one who, in a lofty and +more extensive meaning of the term, transforms everything into emotion, +who stands in a lyric relationship with all things, with the whole +world. And since the innermost constitution of a man's talent +unconsciously acts as the driving tendency, the direction of the aim of +his life, his very fate and his conception of the world, since all this +is so, the lyric poet that Verhaeren is must of necessity have a lyrical +conception of the world, his cosmic feeling <i>must</i> be lyrical. To say +that he has confined himself to the lyric style would be to diminish his +stature. It is true that in all Verhaeren's imaginative work—and it is +of considerable volume—there is no prose. A very thin volume of short +stories did indeed appear many years ago and has long been out of print; +but how tentative and provisional it was in scope<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> may be seen from the +fact that Verhaeren later on turned one of the stories, that of the +bell-ringer in the burning tower, into a poem. And I might mention a +whole series of poems which at bottom are nothing but short stories, and +others again which are saturated with dramatic excitement, quite +unlyrical problems, but all of them lyrically conceived. And even in his +criticism of art and in that penetrating and beautiful book of his on +Rembrandt, in which he represents the organic connection of the artist +with his native province almost as a personal experience, the +outstanding passages live by their lyric enthusiasm. Many of the poems +again are spiritualised theories of art. The origin of language or the +sociological problem of emigration, the economic contrast of agrarianism +and industrialism: in an essay such things might be calmly treated, +coldly passed in review. But this is characteristic of Verhaeren, that +he is unable to take a cold, faint interest in anything: consciously or +unconsciously he must be carried away by enthusiasm for the things he +contemplates. The ecstasy of his excitement involuntarily whips him out +of a slow trot into lyric fervour. Poetry is to him, like his +philosophy, like his ethics, a lyrical soaring. It is characteristic of +the great lyric poets, of Walt Whitman, Dehmel, Carducci, Rilke, Stefan +George, that at a certain height of their artistry they renounce all +other than lyric forms. Here, as elsewhere, great things only seem +possible of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> attainment by concentration, only by the poet's freeing +himself from the trammels of all other experiments. Great lyric poetry +as the art of a life only accrues from the renunciation of all other +forms of poetry.</p> + +<p>Infinite enthusiasm, <i>le lyrisme universel</i>, a rapt visionary sensation +of the earth rolling as it were in an eternal vibration through the +cosmos, is the aim of Verhaeren's work. Not to describe the world in +isolated poems, not to break it up in impressions, but to feel it as +itself a flaring, flaming poem, <i>not to be one who contemplates the +world, but one who feels it</i>, this is his highest yearning. A lyric art +can only grow to such intentions as these from emotions not felt by +other lyrists. It is not, as with most poets, from gentle crepuscular +feelings, from vague states of melancholy, that such an impulse is +crystallised to lyrical expression; here it is an overflowing fulness of +feeling, a bright joy in life, that engenders his poem; an explosion +which in the days of his debility was a paroxysm, which as time went on +changed to a pure enthusiasm, but which was always an eruption of +strength. Lyric art is here a discharge of the whole feeling of life. +With Verhaeren the excitement does not sting the individual nerve; it +spreads electrically, inflames the blood, contracts the muscles, +produces an immense pressure, and then discharges the whole energy of a +body saturated with health and strength. <i>The will to discharge strength +is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> the basic form of Verhaeren's lyric emotion</i>. His aim is to instil +inspiration—first of all into himself (since inspiration always +represents a higher state of ecstasy), and then into others. His lyric +art is above all a launching of himself into exaltation, 'le pouvoir +magique de s'hypnotiser soi-même.'<a name="FNanchor_1_89" id="FNanchor_1_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_89" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> He talks himself into passion, +gives himself that impulsion which then bears others along with him. It +is not a lack, a privation, not a complaint or a wish that his work +expresses; it is a plethora, a superfluity of riches, a pressure. It is +not a warding off of life but an eternal leaping at it. His poetry has +not the modest longing of music to lure to reveries; it does not, like +painting, seek to represent something: it would act like fiery wine; it +would make all feelings strong and glowing, sink all hindrances, produce +that sensation of lightness, of blessedness, that quivering intoxication +which conquers all the heaviness of earth. His intention is to produce +this state of drunkenness, 'non seulement la glorification de la nature +mais la glorification même d'une vision intérieure.' And his attitude is +not plaintive or defensive, it is the great spirited attitude of a hand +raised and pointing out, 'regardez!' the adjuring attitude, 'dites!' or +one that fires and animates, 'en avant!' but it is always a gesture from +the poet's self towards something, always a swinging of his arms away +from himself into the universe,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> always a pressing forward, a snatching +away of himself from matter. And any one who really feels these poems +feels, when the last line is read, that his blood is beating faster, +feels that his body calls for exercise, feels the inspiration impelling +him to action. <i>And this is the highest intention of Verhaeren's lyrical +poetry, to animate, to quicken the blood, to fire the heart, to +intensify vitality, to increase tenfold the sensation of life</i>.</p> + +<p>But not only in this basic emotion is Verhaeren sundered from all those +other poets who fashion their verses from sadness, sickly longing, +amorousness, and melancholy. Verhaeren's lyric poetry breathes in other +realms, in another atmosphere. Verhaeren is what I should like to call a +poet of the daylight, of the open air. If you peruse the lyric works of +contemporary poets you will find that their moods mostly arise from +states of dusk and darkness. Since they have only the power of +reproducing blurred outlines, they are fond of landscapes softened by +twilight; of night, when there is no hardness in things, when what they +see meets them half-way, already shaping itself into verse. Like +Tristan, they hate the day as the destroyer of poetry, and swathe +themselves in the trembling chiaroscuro of twilight. But the really +great lyric poets have always been poets of the daylight; poets of the +day and of the light, as the Greeks were, to whom all things that were +bathed in sun spoke of beauty and cheerfulness; poets of the day, as +Walt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> Whitman was, the American; as all strong men have been who were +filled with the zest of life. In Germany we have Dehmel to love, one of +the few who have the courage to look right into the shining face of +things without the fear of being blinded. But Verhaeren loves things the +more the more intensive and decided they are, the more dazzling they +are, the more their glaring colours clash. He does not surprise things +when they are asleep, when they are resting and are helpless and at the +mercy of poetry; he pounces on them when they are wideawake and can +defend themselves with all their hardness from the attacks of their +lyric lover. He loves the day, which places things side by side in harsh +contrast; he loves the light, because it stimulates the blood; the rain +that lashes the body; the wind that whips the skin; cold, noise, he +loves everything that really and vehemently forces in upon him, +everything that forces him to fight. He loves hard things more than soft +and rounded things; loves that characteristic, black, and gloomy city +Toledo more than golden, dreamy Florence; he loves the wind and the +weather of frowning, tragic landscapes; he even loves noisy and +thunderous cities pregnant with smoke and choking air. His nerves are +not so morbidly sensitive that they respond to the least suggestion, the +feeblest touch, and then stand impotent, fainting, when they are faced +by the impetuous stimulants of robust life; his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> nerves are—not dull, +but healthy. They respond strongly to whatever lays hold of them +strongly. If the other poets are like supersensitive beings who are +excited by every trifle and lose their self-control when really great +demands are made upon them, Verhaeren is like one who is hard to +irritate, but who, if he is really stung, strikes out with his fists. +<i>And Verhaeren does not love the poetical things that come to meet one +already clothed in beauty; he loves those that have first to be wrestled +with and overcome. Herein lies the exceeding masculinity of his art</i>. No +one could ever surmise, in reading a poem of Verhaeren's, that it was +the work of a woman. And as a matter of fact Verhaeren has not yet found +an audience among women. For he is not one who moans and begs for pity; +he is no passive poet, but a fighter, one who wrestles with all strong, +wild, and living things until they yield up to him their innermost +beauty.</p> + +<p>And this struggle for the lyric mastery of individual sensations +gradually becomes a struggle for all things, for the whole world. For +Verhaeren does not wish to conceive of anything as unlyrical; does not +wish to blow lyric fragments off the immense mass of reality; he wishes +to sculpture it into a new shape; wishes to chisel the whole world into +a lyric. And this is the secret of his lyric work; <i>this</i> is his work, +his task. Of a sudden we feel the distance between him and the majority +of lyric poets. <i>They</i> have the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> feelings of people who receive gifts; +they regard the sensations which come fluttering towards them as so many +gay butterflies, capture them, and pin them down. Verhaeren, however, is +the fighter, the worker, who is constrained to conquer everything, to +shape the whole world anew, to rebuild it nearer to his heart's +enthusiasm. He is the lyric poet pictured by Carducci in an imperishable +poem—not the idler gazing into empty space; not the gardener decking +the paths that his lady's feet must tread, and gathering frail violets +for her bosom.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Il poeta è un grande artiere,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Che al mestiere</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Fece i muscoli d'acciaio,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Capo ha fier, collo robusto,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Nudo il busto,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Duro il braccio, e l'occhio gaio.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>And that 'picchia, picchia,' that rhythm of Carducci's, that beat of the +bronze hammer of toil, rings in the measure of his verses. All his poems +have been toiled for, fought for; they are a trophy, a meed of victory; +nothing is a lucky gift. Verhaeren's manuscripts look like a +battlefield. For he is not a poet who, in Goethe's sense, composes poems +for particular occasions; he is never overpowered by a sudden chance +idea: he transforms a problem of life, an actuality, or an intellectual +phase into a lyric mood. After he has molten the poetic idea in his +passion to a white heat, he hammers it into a poem by his rhythm.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> His +works are complexes: individual ideas attract him; he sets a hedge round +their poetical field, ploughs it, scatters the seed in it, and never +returns to the scene. What he has once achieved has no longer any +attraction for him. To him poetry is always a fight, always work, always +a plan. The layman who would fain look upon a lyric poem as a gift +fallen from heaven will perhaps have no liking for this conscious +method; an artist, on the other hand, will recognise in it the strength +of a wise restraint, concentration on one aim, the will to compose not a +lyric poem but a lyric work. A poetic work like that of Verhaeren, the +work of a life, is not created by chance feeling alone, and not by +enthusiasm. Such a work of art has, like a drama, its intellectual laws, +the conquering and distributing powers of the intelligence, instinct, +and above all that unifying will which suffers no dead points, no gaps, +no stains in the work. And it is from such a vast lyric will that this +work has arisen. Verhaeren is no favoured child of fortune, dowered with +art in his cradle; his blood is heavy, Teutonic blood; and, fortunately, +that ease and suppleness of the artisan which in all departments of +labour produces a ready mediocrity was as much wanting in him as all +physical skill. Verhaeren's poetic work, his form, his rhythm, his idea, +his philosophy, his architectonics, all this is something he has +acquired by labour, something he has painfully produced by passion and +an obstinate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> will; but for that very reason it is something organic. +For Verhaeren is one of those who learn slowly, persistently, and +surely, only from their own experience and never from others, but who +never forget and lose what they have once acquired; one of those who +grow as the things of Nature do, as trees grow into their strength ring +by ring, and rise year by year higher above the earth to gaze farther +and farther out beyond the horizons and nearer and nearer into the +heavens.</p> + +<p>And just for this reason, because this evolution was so persistent, +because it was so wholly based upon experience, is the ascending line in +his work so harmonious and so organic. No other lyric work of our days +is so much a symbol of the seasons, so much a mirror of human +periodicity. The revolt of spring, the sultriness of summer, the +fruitage of autumn, and the cool clearness of winter gently merge in it, +the one into the other. In his first books, at an age when many +precocious poets have finished their development, he was still wrestling +for his new form, for his expression. Nor did he at that time soon +arrive at the heart of things; he remained for a long time absorbed in +the purely picturesque contemplation of their external aspects. Then he +attempted experiments, and freed himself in revolution. But in his +beginnings he was always a student, an experimenter. In his second +period, having really penetrated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> below the surface, he found his own +form, like every master, and subdued the internal with the external. But +now that material is conquered, he that was a student and is now a +master will of necessity be a teacher, and feel impelled to deduce +forces from phenomena, laws from forces, the eternal from the earthly. +From vacant contemplation he had risen to passionate creation, to active +creation of art. The supreme creation of art has ever been the +converting of the unconscious into consciousness, the recognition and +knowledge of the laws of art; from the real the path proceeds to that +which transcends reality, to faith and to religion. Like every really +organic poet, Verhaeren has had to repeat the ascent of universal +history in his own evolution.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h5>FOOTNOTES:</h5> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_89" id="Footnote_1_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_89"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Albert Mockel, <i>Emile Verhaeren</i>.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="SYNTHESES" id="SYNTHESES"></a>SYNTHESES</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Réunir notre esprit et le monde</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Dans les deux mains d'une très simple loi profonde.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 19.5em;">É.V., 'L'Attente.'</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>After the great visions of the cities, after the wonderful +interpretations of democracy, there was a moment of appeasement in +Verhaeren's work—a lyrical intermezzo of little books: an almanac of +the months unfolding in short poems, the cosy happiness of wedded love +enshrined in grateful song, the legends of Flanders told in richly +coloured pictures, and then, in the great pentalogy <i>Toute la Flandre</i>, +the cities, coasts, heroes, and great men of his native province +compressed in one single picture. But after that Verhaeren takes up once +again his old path across the earth; passes again through the roaring +cities, the pregnant fields; wanders along the sea-shore; once again +through the landscapes of <i>Les Flamandes</i> and <i>Les Moines</i>, of <i>Les +Villes Tentaculaires</i> and <i>Les Campagnes Hallucinées</i>. It is now the +return of the spiral in Goethe's sense of evolution; the return to the +same point, but on a higher level, with a loftier outlook, in a narrower +circle, and for that reason nearer to the last, the highest point. Once +again Verhaeren<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> surveys the modern world: now, however, with different +eyes, which no longer remain resting on the aspect of the world, but +press farther to the cause of all. What he had formerly seen sensuously, +the things whose values he had æsthetically estimated and transmuted, he +now looks at from the intellectual side, that he may estimate their +value morally. He no longer sees each thing separately, no longer adds +picture to picture, vision to vision, like a game of coloured cards: he +now unites them in one living chain. He no longer searches through +individual and detached phenomena; he now sees them together against the +background of his lofty intention to weld them into one single picture. +Now he composes, not individual poems, but fragments of his world-poem. +For, from the time that Verhaeren began to look at things with conscious +enthusiasm, they assumed different forms. The straining of his epoch no +longer seems to him to be a solitary manifestation of energy, but only a +Protean form of the eternal discharge of vigour; the will to life no +longer seems to him to be the deed of individual men, but the vitalised +primitive will of all humanity. And so, just as of old he attempted in +his vision a synthesis of energies, he now sees laws flowing into one +supreme and highest thing, into a cosmic law.</p> + +<p>Lyric exaltation now arches the dream of its laws over reality. But it +is no longer the mere<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> dream of a youth in expectancy of life—the +anæmic, vague, dark, restless dream—but a man's longing to get behind +life and follow it to its earthly limit. It is a Utopia enhancing +realities beyond themselves; it is the dream of Godhead in things. In +the whole world Verhaeren sees a cosmic effort. 'Le monde est trépidant +de trains et de navires.'<a name="FNanchor_1_90" id="FNanchor_1_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_90" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> The whole world is excited with human +activity and effort; manifestations of the feeling of life flame +everywhere; everywhere humanity is fighting for something invisible and +perhaps unattainable. But whereas of old the poet estimated the value of +every separate energy, now he comprehends all energies as one uniform +manifestation, recognises behind the unconscious activity of the +individual the sway of something greater—the bourne of all humanity. +All who work in the material of the temporal only symbolise eternal +forces—intoxication, energy, conquest, joy, error, expectation, Utopia. +And it is to these forces, or rather to these forms of the force at the +root of all things, that his poems are addressed. In <i>Les Visages de la +Vie</i> he seeks to describe yearning in all its forms and aims; its +distribution in human labour, its restlessness, its vigour, and, above +all, its beauty. But not only human manifestations now appear to him in +a closer cohesion, the synthesis of realism and metaphysics now makes +his relationship to elementary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> things richer and more heroic. Now, when +he treats some motive he had already treated in the first books, and +these poems of the first and last periods are compared, it is with +astonishment and admiration that you trace the silent growth of these +last years. I will mention one example. He had already sung a song to +the wind. But the wind at that time was to him the evil storm that +tousles cottages, shakes chimneys, forces its way into rooms, rages +across country, and brings the winter. It was a senseless power, +beautiful in its senselessness, but aimless, an incomprehensible +element, a detached phenomenon of Nature. Now, however, the poet in his +maturity looks upon it as the wanderer over the undying world, one that +has seen all countries, that drives ships over seas, that has sated +itself with the perfume of strange flowers and brings it from far away, +that penetrates our chest like an aroma and steels and expands it. Now +he loves the wind as one of the thousand things of the earth which +contribute to the intensification of his vital feeling.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Si j'aime, admire et chante avec folie,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Le vent,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * </span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">C'est qu'il grandit mon être entier et c'est qu'avant</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">De s'infiltrer, par mes poumons et par mes pores,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Jusques au sang dont vit mon corps,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Avec sa force rude ou sa douceur profonde,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Immensément, il a étreint le monde.<a name="FNanchor_2_91" id="FNanchor_2_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_91" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p> + +<p>So, too, a tree becomes to him the image of the eternal renewal of +strength, of resistance to the hardness of winter and of fate, of the +will to new beauty in the spring. A mountain no longer appears to him as +a chance raising of the landscape, but a great and mighty thing in whose +keeps secrets lie, ores, and the source of springs, from whose summit, +however, our eyes can sweep the world. The forest interprets itself to +him as the labyrinth of a thousand paths, and as the many-voiced anthem +of life: everything in nature becomes a freshening and a vivifying of +this vitality. <i>An absolute transmutation of values has taken place from +the time that he has comprehended things as parts of the world's entity, +and as themselves an entity</i>. Travel, formerly a flight from reality, +now becomes to him the opening out of new distances, of new +possibilities; dream appears to him no longer as an illusion, but as the +capacity of intensifying the real from its present to a future state. +Europe is no longer to him a group of nations, a geographical idea, but +the great symbol of conquest, money, gold, he no longer regards +contemptuously as a materialising of life, but as a new spur for new +ambition. And the sea, which in every succeeding work of his sings its +unquiet rhythm, is no longer the murderous power that eats into the +land, but the holy tide, the symbol of constant strength in eternal +unrest; it is to him 'la mer nue et pure, comme une<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> idée.'<a name="FNanchor_3_92" id="FNanchor_3_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_92" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> Since +everything coheres, he feels related to all in a touching brotherhood +with things; he no longer feels the presence of things, he loves them +like a piece of himself; he feels the sea physically in himself</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Ma peau, mes mains et mes cheveux</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Sentent la mer</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et sa couleur est dans mes yeux.<a name="FNanchor_4_93" id="FNanchor_4_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_93" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>And so, just as his vital feeling is renewed every time he comes into +contact with the waves, he believes in a physical resurrection of the +body out of the sea, believes that his rising from the water is a +<i>nouveau moment de conscience</i>. Verhaeren has returned to the great +cohesion: in Nature and in man there is no longer for him any phenomenon +which might not become a symbol for him, a symbol of the great vital +instinct, to stimulate and fire his vitality.</p> + +<p>And since he now responds to all things with this one feeling, a uniform +conception of the world must involuntarily result from this unity of +feeling. <i>To the unity of enthusiasm corresponds the unity of the world, +the monistic feeling</i>. Just as he himself derives nothing but an +intensification and exaltation of his feelings from all things, nothing +but the very sensation of life, all phenomena and activities must be a +synthesis, all forces must flow into one single force as rivers flow +into the ocean, all laws must merge in one single law<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Toute la vie, avec ses lois, avec ses formes,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">—Multiples doigts noueux de quelque main énorme—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">S'entr'ouvre et se referme en un poing: l'unité.<a name="FNanchor_5_94" id="FNanchor_5_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_94" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>And thus, this straining of all humanity, discharged in a thousand +forms, must be something in common, a fight against something lying +outside of itself, against a resistance which still makes life seem +hard, dull, and turbid. This fight of humanity cannot be other than +directed against something that impedes the sensation of life. And this, +the only thing which struggles against humanity, is in Verhaeren's eyes +the supremacy of Nature, the mystery of divine intervention, the +subjection of man to fate—in short, all divinity that does not reside +in man. As soon as man is dependent on nobody except himself and his own +strength, he too will attain the great joyousness of all the things of +Nature.</p> + +<p><i>This fight of man to become God, this fight for his independence, his +freedom from chance and the supernatural—this is the great metaphysical +idea of Verhaeren's work</i>. His last books seek to represent nothing else +than this one highest battle of man, this struggle to be free from all +that is laid upon him, not by himself, but by Nature, from all that +impedes his will to become a thing of Nature, an elementary force, +himself. This struggle is the highest and purest effort, for</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Rien n'est plus haut, malgré l'angoisse et le tourment,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Que la bataille avec l'énigme et les ténèbres.<a name="FNanchor_6_95" id="FNanchor_6_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_95" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span></p> + +<p>Man in this battle defends himself against darkness, against what is +unknown, against Heaven, against all laws that restrict his expansion; +the whole aim of man, the aim he has unconsciously been following for a +thousand years, is independence, is to become a law unto himself:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">L'homme dans l'univers n'a qu'un maître, lui-même,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et l'univers entier est ce maître, dans lui.<a name="FNanchor_7_96" id="FNanchor_7_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_96" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>To-day he is still counteracted by chance, or, as many conceive it, by +divinity. Wholly to conquer this, to substitute the determination of +one's own destiny for chance, will be the great task of the future. Much +has been taken from chance already. Lightning, the most dangerous power +of heaven, is conquered; distances are bridged over; the forms of Nature +are changed; social communities have by common action diverted the +iniquity of the weather; diseases are from year to year being fathomed +and checked; more and more every incalculable element is being brought +within the range of calculation and fore-sight. But all that is unknown +must more and more be the booty of man, whose highest will is 'fouiller +l'inconnu.'<a name="FNanchor_8_97" id="FNanchor_8_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_97" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> More and more his eyes penetrate the subterranean and +mysterious workings of Nature.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Or aujourd'hui c'est la réalité</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Secrète encor, mais néanmoins enclose</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Au cours perpétuel et rythmique des choses,</span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Qu'on veut, avec ténacité,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Saisir, pour ordonner la vie et sa beauté</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Selon les causes.<a name="FNanchor_9_98" id="FNanchor_9_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_98" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>For this battle everybody is a soldier in man's war of liberation, all +of us stand invisibly ranked together. Everybody who wrests from Nature +in increment to knowledge, who does something never done before, +everybody who by poetry fires others to action, tears off a piece of the +veil. With every step forward that man takes against the dark, with +every foot of ground he conquers, divinity loses strength to him; and +this will go on until at length nothing remains of the God of old, until +the identity of the two ideas humanity and divinity is unconsciously +accomplished.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Héros, savant, artiste, apôtre, aventurier,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Chacun troue à son tour le mur noir des mystères</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et, grâce à ces labeurs groupés et solitaires,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">L'être nouveau se sent l'univers tout entier.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Seen from this height, professions assume a new poetic value. In the +front rank of fighting men Verhaeren sees those the effort of whose life +it is to acquire knowledge—the men of science. Verhaeren is perhaps the +only one among modern poets who has conceived of science as of perfectly +equal value with poetry, <i>who has discovered new moral and religious +values in science, just as he had already discovered new æsthetic values +in industrialism<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> and democracy</i>. Most poets had hitherto looked upon +science as a hindrance, because they were afraid of clear things as they +were afraid of real things. They looked upon science as the destroyer of +myths, the negation of every noble superstition which in their eyes was +indissolubly connected with the poetical. But just as machinery seemed +to them to be ugly, because in the machines they saw beauty had +retreated from the outer to the interior form, here too the new ethical +value is hidden not in the method but in the aim. Verhaeren esteems +science as the great fighter for the new conception of the world: 'Le +monde entier est repensé par leurs cervelles.'<a name="FNanchor_10_99" id="FNanchor_10_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_99" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> He knows that the +little increments to knowledge which are continually being made in our +days in thousands of places, in sanatoria and lecture-rooms, +observatories and studies, with microscopes and chemical analyses, +weighing and calculation, with measures and numbers, that these little +additions to knowledge may, by comparison and reproduction, grow into +great creative discoveries which will immensely enrich our vital +feeling. And this hymn to science is at the same time a hymn to our +epoch; for no epoch before ours has so consciously bought for the +advancement of knowledge, none has been so replete with the longing for +new knowledge and the transmutation of values:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">L'acharnement à tout peser, à tout savoir</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Fouille la forêt drue et mouvante des êtres.<a name="FNanchor_11_100" id="FNanchor_11_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_100" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>In inspired words Verhaeren celebrates science as the highest effort of +our age as of the past; for he knows that what to us to-day is +presupposed and self-evident was a thousand years-ago the goal of the +most ardent effort, that the road we pace indolently to-day is soaked +with the blood of martyrs.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Dites! quels temps versés au gouffre des années,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et quelle angoisse ou quel espoir des destinées,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et quels cerveaux chargés de noble lassitude</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">A-t-il fallu pour faire un peu de certitude?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Dites! les feux et les bûchers; dites! les claies;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Les regards fous, en des visages d'effroi blanc;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Dites! les corps martyrisés, dites! les plaies</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Criant la vérité, avec leur bouche en sang.<a name="FNanchor_12_101" id="FNanchor_12_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_101" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>But he knows equally well that the acquisitions of to-day are again only +hypotheses for the new truths of to-morrow. Error is inevitable, but +even error opens out new ways. In the beautiful idea of Brezina, the +Czech poet, all ideal aims are floating islands that recede as we +approach them. The highest aim is in effort itself, in the life which +effort intensifies. Verhaeren's optimism here guards his marches against +banality, for he is sufficient of a mystic to know that it is the +unknowable and the inaccessible that lend all things their impenetrable +beauty. But the knowledge of this must not scare enthusiasm away:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Partons quand même, avec notre âme inassouvie,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Puisque la force et que la vie</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Sont au delà des vérités et des erreurs.<a name="FNanchor_13_102" id="FNanchor_13_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_102" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>What if a few last things remain eternally inscrutable: 'plutôt que d'en +peupler les coins par des chimères, nous préférons ne point savoir.'<a name="FNanchor_14_103" id="FNanchor_14_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_103" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> +Rather a world without gods than one with false gods, rather incomplete +knowledge than false knowledge.</p> + +<p>Here, where the heroes of science reach the limits of what is possible +to them, a new group must stand by their side and help them in their +work. These are the poets, who preach faith where knowledge ends. They +must find the synthesis between science and religion, between the +earthly and the divine, the new synthesis—<i>religious confidence in +science</i>. Their optimism must force their fellow-men to have faith in +science, as in earlier days they had faith in gods: though proofs fail +them, they must demand from this new religion what the early fathers +demanded for the old religion. And he himself, Verhaeren, he who +once—here again a bitter 'no' is turned into an exulting 'yes'—said in +his beginnings</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Toute science enferme au fond d'elle le doute,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Comme une mère enceinte étreint un enfant mort,<a name="FNanchor_15_104" id="FNanchor_15_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_104" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>he himself is to-day the first of confident enthusiasts. Where +individual minds are still at war<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">'Oh! ces luttes là -haut entre ces dieux humains!<a name="FNanchor_16_105" id="FNanchor_16_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_105" class="fnanchor">[16]</a>—</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>where their knowledge has not yet found a bridge, poets must with +enthusiasm and confidence surmise a path. They must link law with +perception; and in the same measure as the scientists have by knowledge +fed their enthusiasm, they in their turn must feed knowledge by their +confidence. If they have no proofs of actualities, their faith dowers +them with the confidence to say, 'nous croyons déjà ce que les autres +sauront.'<a name="FNanchor_17_106" id="FNanchor_17_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_106" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> They scent and surmise new things before they are born; +they trust hypotheses before they are proved. Already,</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Pendant que disputent et s'embrouillent encor,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">À coups de textes morts</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et de dogmes, les sages,<a name="FNanchor_18_107" id="FNanchor_18_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_107" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>they hear the hovering wings of the new truth. They already believe in +what later generations will know; they derive vital joy from what their +descendants will be the first to possess. They doubt in nothing; not +that man will conquer the air, quell disease, make life cheerful and +easier; they do not despair in progress, and in their ecstasy they leap +over all obstacles. 'Le cri de Faust n'est plus le nôtre';<a name="FNanchor_19_108" id="FNanchor_19_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_108" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> the +question as to 'yes' and 'no' has long since been joyfully answered in +the affirmative, exults the poet; we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> no longer hesitate between the +possibility and the impossibility of knowledge, we believe in it, and +faith and confidence is already the highest knowledge of life. In this +optimism of poets other discoverers of knowledge must now fulfil their +growth, from these dreams they must derive strength for their activity; +all men must in this way complete one another, that it may be possible +for them to beleaguer darkness, perfect the conquest of God, and</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Emprisonner quand même, un jour, l'éternité,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Dans le gel blanc d'une immobile vérité.<a name="FNanchor_20_109" id="FNanchor_20_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_109" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>For this new truth, the Man-God whom they are to discover, poets and +scholars are the new saints; and his servants are all those whose brows +are fiery with the fever of work, whose hands are scorched with +experiments, whose nerves are strained by constant effort, whose eyes +are fatigued by books. To all of these Verhaeren's hymn is addressed:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Qu'ils soient sacrés par les foules, ces hommes</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Qui scrutèrent les faits pour en tirer les lois.<a name="FNanchor_21_110" id="FNanchor_21_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_110" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>But still farther reaches Verhaeren's enthusiasm for those who help in +the new work, for the 'saccageurs d'infini.'<a name="FNanchor_22_111" id="FNanchor_22_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_111" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> Not only the thinker +and the poet extend the horizon of life, but each one also who creates +and is in any way at work. Only the man who creates is really alive and +really<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> a man—'seul existe qui crée.'<a name="FNanchor_23_112" id="FNanchor_23_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_112" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> And so his hymn is likewise +addressed to those who toil with their hands, to those who, without +knowing the aim, toil stolidly day by day in mines and fields; for they +too build the face of the earth, create mountains where there were none, +rear lights by the sea's marge, construct machines and the huge +telescopes that pry on the heavens: all of them forge the tools of +knowledge and prepare the new era. Merchants who send across the ocean +ships that spin threads from farthest shore to shore, they too weave the +net of the great unity; traders who spread gold, who quicken the +circulation of the world's blood, they too co-operate in the battle +waged with the dark. It is their league and union which, first of all, +gives humanity its great strength; they all prepare the hour, the +moment, which must inevitably come.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Il viendra l'instant, où tant d'efforts savants et ingénus,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Tant de génie et de cerveaux tendus vers l'inconnu,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Quand même, auront bâti sur des bases profondes</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et jaillissant au ciel, la synthèse du monde!<a name="FNanchor_24_113" id="FNanchor_24_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_113" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Here in fiery dawns glimmer the days of the future. Tens of thousands +will struggle, will prepare, until at last the one man comes who shall +lay the last stone of the edifice, 'le tranquille rebelle,'<a name="FNanchor_25_114" id="FNanchor_25_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_114" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> the +Christ of this new religion.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">C'est que celui qu'on attendait n'est point venu,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Celui que la nature entière</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Suscitera un jour, âme et rose trémière,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Sous les soleils puissants non encore connus;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">C'est que la race ardente et fine,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Dont il sera la fleur,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">N'a point multiplié ses milliers de racines</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Jusqu'au tréfonds des profondeurs.<a name="FNanchor_26_115" id="FNanchor_26_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_115" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>For here in Verhaeren's work this vision arises fervent and glowing. +Incessantly man proceeds on the path of his destiny. Once his whole +world was replete with divinity, 'jadis tout l'inconnu était peuplé de +dieux';<a name="FNanchor_27_116" id="FNanchor_27_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_116" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> then one single God took right and might into His hand; but +now, by means of his strength and passion, man has wrested, year by +year, one secret after the other from this Unknown Power. More and more +he has conquered chance by laws, faith by knowledge, fear by safety; +more and more the power of the gods glides insensibly into his hands, +more and more he determines his own life; and the process will continue +till he is in every respect the captain of his fate; he is less and less +subject to laws he has not himself established; more and more Nature's +slave becomes her lord.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Races, régnez: puisque par vous la volonté du sort</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Devient de plus en plus la volonté humaine.<a name="FNanchor_28_117" id="FNanchor_28_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_117" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Gods will become men; exterior fate will return into their bosom; the +saints will henceforth<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> be only their brothers; and Paradise will be the +earth itself. Most beautifully Verhaeren has expressed this idea in one +of his latest books,<a name="FNanchor_29_118" id="FNanchor_29_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_118" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> in the symbol of Adam and Eve. Eve, expelled +from the Garden of Eden, one day finds its doors open again. But she +does not re-enter it, for her highest joy, her Paradise, is now in +activity and the pleasure of the earth. Zest in existence, in life, joy +of the earth, has never been more strongly and burningly exalted than in +this symbol; never has the hymn of humanity been sung with greater +fervour than by this poet—perhaps because he had denied life more +wildly and more obstinately than any other. Here all contrasts sing +together in a harmony without a flaw; the last enmity between man and +Nature here becomes the ecstatic feeling of man's godhead.</p> + +<p>And strange to say, here the circle of life returns to itself. The books +of the poet's old age return to the days of his youth, to the school +benches in Ghent where Maeterlinck also sat, the other great Fleming. +Both, who lost themselves there, have found themselves again on the +heights of life in their conception of the world, for Maeterlinck's +highest teaching also (in his book <i>Wisdom and Destiny</i>) is, that all +fate is locked up in man himself, that it is man's highest evolution, +his highest duty, to conquer fate, all that lies outside him, God. This +profound thought, which has thus twice in our days blossomed forth<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> from +Flemish soil, has been achieved on different paths. Maeterlinck has +found it by listening to the mysticism of silence, Verhaeren by +listening to the noise of life. He has found his new God not in the +darkness of dreams but in the light of streets, in all places where men +bestir themselves, and where from heavy hours the trembling flower of +joy is born.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h5>FOOTNOTES:</h5> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_90" id="Footnote_1_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_90"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> 'La Conquête' (<i>La Multiple Splendeur</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_91" id="Footnote_2_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_91"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> 'À la Gloire du Vent' (<i>La Multiple Splendeur</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_92" id="Footnote_3_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_92"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> 'L'Eau' (<i>Les Visages de la Vie</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_93" id="Footnote_4_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_93"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> 'Au Bord du Quai' (<i>Ibid.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_94" id="Footnote_5_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_94"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> 'La Conquête' (<i>Les Forces Tumultueuses</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_95" id="Footnote_6_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_95"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> 'Les Cultes' (<i>Ibid.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_96" id="Footnote_7_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_96"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> 'Les Villes' (<i>Les Forces Tumultueuses</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_97" id="Footnote_8_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_97"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> 'La Ferreur' (<i>La Multiple Splendeur</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_98" id="Footnote_9_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_98"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> 'Vers le Futur' (<i>Les Villes Tentaculaires</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_99" id="Footnote_10_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_99"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> 'La Conquête' (<i>Les Forces Tumultueuses</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_100" id="Footnote_11_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_100"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> 'Vers le Futur' (<i>Les Villes Tentaculaires</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_101" id="Footnote_12_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_101"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> 'La Recherche' (<i>Ibid.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_102" id="Footnote_13_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_102"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> 'L'Erreur' (<i>Les Forces Tumultueuses</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_103" id="Footnote_14_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_103"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> 'La Ferveur' (<i>La Multiple Splendeur</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_104" id="Footnote_15_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_104"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> 'Méditation' (<i>Les Moines</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_105" id="Footnote_16_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_105"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> 'Les Penseurs' (<i>La Multiple Splendeur</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_106" id="Footnote_17_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_106"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> 'La Science' (<i>Les Forces Tumultueuses</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_107" id="Footnote_18_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_107"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> 'L'Action' (<i>Les Visages de la Vie</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_108" id="Footnote_19_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_108"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> 'La Science' (<i>Les Forces Tumultueuses</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_109" id="Footnote_20_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_109"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> 'Les Penseurs' (<i>La Multiple Splendeur</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_110" id="Footnote_21_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_110"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> 'La Science' (<i>Les Forces Tumultueuses</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_111" id="Footnote_22_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_111"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> 'Les Penseurs' (<i>La Multiple Splendeur</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_112" id="Footnote_23_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_112"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> 'La Mort' (<i>La Multiple Splendeur</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_113" id="Footnote_24_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_113"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> 'La Recherche' (<i>Les Villes Tentaculaires</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_114" id="Footnote_25_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_114"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> 'L'Attente' (<i>Les Visages de la Vie</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_115" id="Footnote_26_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_115"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> 'L'Attente' (<i>Les Visages de la Vie</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_116" id="Footnote_27_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_116"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> 'La Folie' (<i>Les Forces Tumultueuses</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_117" id="Footnote_28_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_117"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> (<i>La Multiple Splendeur</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_118" id="Footnote_29_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_118"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> <i>Les Rythmes Souverains.</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="THE_ETHICS_OF_FERVOUR" id="THE_ETHICS_OF_FERVOUR"></a>THE ETHICS OF FERVOUR</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">La vie est à monter et non pas à descendre.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 17em;">É.V., 'Les Rêves,'</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Il faut admirer tout pour s'exalter soi-même</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et se dresser plus haut que ceux qui out vécu.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 17em;">É.V., 'La Vie.'</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The metaphysical ideal crystallised by Verhaeren from his contemplation +of life, which was at first wildly passionate, but then more and more +synoptical and logical, has been called unity. He has himself recently, +in answer to a question submitted to various men of letters, confirmed +this conception as part of his programme. 'It seems to me,' he says, +'that poetry is bound ere long to be merged in a very clear Pantheism. +More and more the unity of the world is admitted by upright and healthy +minds. That old dualism between the soul and the body, between God and +the universe, is becoming effaced. Man is a fragment of the architecture +of the world. He understands and is conscious of the entity of which he +is a part.... He feels that he is encompassed and dominated, while at +the same time he himself encompasses and dominates. By reason of his own +miracles he is becoming, in some sort, that personal God that his +ancestors believed in. Now I ask, is it possible that lyric<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> exaltation +should long remain indifferent to such an unchaining of human power, +should hesitate to celebrate such a vast spectacle of grandeur? The poet +of to-day has only to surrender himself to what he sees, hears, +imagines, conjectures, for works to be born of his heart and brain that +are young, vibrating, and new.'<a name="FNanchor_1_119" id="FNanchor_1_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_119" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> But he who would build up the whole +image must not make a halt at this stage of knowledge: over against the +logical ordering of external things he must set another of inward +things; against the knowledge of life he must set the feeling of life. +He must set up an ethical ideal as well as a metaphysical ideal, a +commandment of life corresponding to his law of life.</p> + +<p>But great poets never discover a standard of life, a moral precept, +which is not a reflex of the law of their own inner nature. Many +possibilities of contemplation are open to the thinker, to the quiet +observer; to the poet however, to the lyrist, only a poetic philosophy +of life is possible, a contemplation lyrically exalted. Whereas the +philosopher can attain the knowledge of unity by measurement and +calculation, by a perception and calm computation of forces, a poet can +discover the evolution of things in the direction of harmony and unity +only in his ecstasy, only in an exalted state of enthusiasm. He will +perforce recognise a commandment for the whole world in his own +enthusiasm, and in his lyric ecstasy a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> moral demand of life. 'Toute la +vie est dans l'essor,' for the poet all life is in ecstasy. And just as +Verhaeren never described things in a state of rest, so too his +comprehension of the universe is never conceivable except in the +permanently exalted state of the unrest of joy and motion.</p> + +<p>Verhaeren's relationship to the world around him was ever passionate. He +has always approached things feverishly, as a lover approaches the woman +he desires. Only what he has won by fighting has the value to him of a +possession. Things do not belong to us as long as we pass them by, as +long as we only look at them with unfeeling and cold eyes as though they +were a scene in a play, a walking picture. To feel the connection +between them and us, between the world and the poet, between man and +man, to pass over from the purely contemplative state to the assessment +of values, we must enter into some personal relationship of sympathy or +antipathy. Verhaeren's first crisis had taught him that negation is +sterile, and his recovery had then shown him that only assent, +acceptance, affection, and enthusiasm can place us in a real +relationship with things.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Pour vivre clair, ferme et juste,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Avec mon cÅ“ur, j'admire tout</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Ce qui vibre, travaille et bout</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Dans la tendresse humaine et sur la terre auguste.<a name="FNanchor_2_120" id="FNanchor_2_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_120" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span></p> + +<p>A thing only belongs to us when it is felt—not so much for us +personally—as beautiful, necessary, and vivid: only when we have said +'yes' to it. <i>And therefore our whole evolution can only be to admire as +much as possible, to understand as much as possible, to let our feeling +have intercourse with as many things as possible</i>. To contemplate is too +little; to understand is too little. Only when we have confirmed a thing +from its very roots, confirmed it as necessary, does it really belong to +us. 'II faut aimer pour découvrir avec génie.' And so our whole effort +must be to overcome what is negative in ourselves, to reject nothing, to +kill the critical spirit in ourselves, to strengthen what is positive in +us, to assent as much as possible. Here again Verhaeren is in agreement +with Nietzsche's last ideals: 'Warding things off, keeping things down, +is a waste of energy, a squandering of strength on negative +purposes.'<a name="FNanchor_3_121" id="FNanchor_3_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_121" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> Criticism is sterile. Verhaeren is here as ever a +relativist of values, for he knows that they are incessantly occupied in +a process of transformation in favour of their highest value, and +therefore he holds enthusiasm (the symbol of over-estimation) to be more +important, in the sense of a higher justice, than what is apparently +absolute justice itself.</p> + +<p>For this is the essential: if in our estimation we often over-estimate +things which in any case would preserve their inner value independently<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> +of our 'yes' or 'no,' that is not so great a danger as it is a profit +that our own souls should grow by means of our admiration. 'Admirer, +c'est se grandir.'<a name="FNanchor_4_122" id="FNanchor_4_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_122" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> For if we admire more, and more intensively, than +others, we shall ourselves grow richer than those timid ones who content +themselves with choice morsels of life instead of grasping life in its +entirety, who restrict themselves because they only place themselves in +relationship with a part of the world and not with the whole cosmos. The +more a man admires, the more he possesses:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Il faut admirer tout pour s'exalter soi-même</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et se dresser plus haut que ceux qui out vécu</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">De coupables souffrances et de désirs vaincus.<a name="FNanchor_5_123" id="FNanchor_5_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_123" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>For admiration means, in the highest sense, subordinating oneself to +other things. <i>The more a man suppresses his own personal pride, the +higher he stands in the moral sense</i>. For to accentuate oneself and to +deny what is not oneself needs less strength than to suppress oneself +and to surrender oneself in admiration to all else. Here Verhaeren sees +the rise of a new ethical problem. A whole ladder of values is revealed +to him in the moral standard of freedom and frankness with which a man +can meet his fellows in his admiration; a ladder on whose topmost rung +the man stands who rejects nothing whatever, who meets every +manifestation of life with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> ecstasy. To be able to admire more means to +grow more oneself:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Oh! vivre et vivre et se sentir meilleur</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">À mesure que bout plus fervemment le cÅ“ur;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Vivre plus clair, dès qu'on marche en conquête;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Vivre plus haut encor, dès que le sort s'entête</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">À dessécher la force et l'audace des bras.<a name="FNanchor_6_124" id="FNanchor_6_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_124" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>And so strong must this restless enthusiasm grow, this incessant +enthusiasm for things, that the height of the ascent suddenly surprises +one with a rapt feeling of dizziness. The lyrical commandment of the +highest ecstasy is here an ethical standard:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Il faut en tes élans te dépasser sans cesse,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Être ton propre étonnement.<a name="FNanchor_7_125" id="FNanchor_7_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_125" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>In this idea of restless enthusiasm, the principles of which have also +been expounded by Verhaeren in his essay <i>Cosmic Enthusiasm</i> +(<i>Insel-Almanach,</i> 1913), he has established a poetic equivalent to his +other great impulse of humanity, set an ethical ideal by the side of the +metaphysical ideal. For if of old the yearning for knowledge, that +superb struggle for the conquest of the unknown, was the only thing that +placed man in an eternally living relationship to the new things, what +is possibly a still more valuable instinct is discovered in this +incessantly intensified ecstatic admiration. Admiring is more than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> +estimating and knowing. To surrender oneself in love to all things is +higher than the curiosity to know everything. 'Tout affronter vaut mieux +que tout comprendre.'<a name="FNanchor_8_126" id="FNanchor_8_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_126" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> For in all knowledge there is still a residue +of selfishness, of the pride of personal acquisition, while admiration +of things contains nothing but humility—that great humility, however, +which is an infinite enrichment of life, because it signifies a +dissolution in the all. Whereas knowledge is brought to a sudden +standstill before many things and finds the road blocked with darkness, +in admiration, in ecstasy, there is no limit set to the ego. <i>Though +many values lock themselves up from knowledge, none denies itself wholly +to admiration</i>. Even the smallest thing becomes great when it is +penetrated with love, and the greater we let things grow—the more we +enrich the substance of our own life—the more infinite we make our ego. +It is the highest ethical task of a great man to find the highest value +in every phenomenon, and to free this value from the thick and often +stifling rind of antipathy and strangeness. Not to let oneself be +repelled by resistance is the perfection of a noble enthusiasm. If +anything whatsoever is void of beauty, it will have a power which by its +energy expresses beauty. If anything seems strange and ugly in the +traditional sense, it will set the wonderful task of finding out the new +sense in which it is beautiful. <i>And to have found<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> this new beauty in +the new things was the active greatness of the poetic work, the +greatness which was unconscious and now becomes conscious, which was +knowledge and now becomes law</i>. While all others considered our great +cities frightful and ugly, Verhaeren praised their magnificence; while +all others abhorred science as an obstacle to poetry, Verhaeren +celebrated it as the purest form of life. For he knows that everything +changes, that 'ce qui fut hier le but est l'obstacle demain,'<a name="FNanchor_9_127" id="FNanchor_9_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_127" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> and +<i>vice versa</i> that the obstacle of to-day may perhaps be the goal of the +next generation. He had already recognised in his poetry what the +architectural movement in the great cities in the last few years has +realised, that huge shops, as emporia of intellectual life, as new +centres of force, provide tasks for art as stupendous as the cathedrals +of old; that in the reek and smoke of teeming cities new tones of colour +were waiting for painters, new problems for philosophers; that all that +in our own time looms bulky and unseemly will to the next generation be +well-proportioned and have to be called beautiful. Verhaeren's +enthusiasm for what is new overcomes the resistance of reverence for +tradition. Verhaeren has rendered signal service to our time by being +the first to recognise and proclaim the great impressionists and all +innovators in art and poetry. For to reject nothing new, to be hostile +to nothing the world can offer, this only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> is what he understands by +knowing the world as it is and truly loving it. His ladder of values +ends on high in this absolute ideal of admiration of the whole world, +not only of that which is but of that which shall be, of the identity of +every ego with the time and its forms:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">L'homme n'est suprême et clair que si sa volonté</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Est d'être lui en même temps qu'il est monde.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>And since this boundless admiration turns selfishness to +dust—selfishness, the eternal obstacle to all purely human +relations—since, in a word, it produces a kind of brotherly +relationship to all things, it also opens out the possibility of +levelling the relationship between man and man. The book <i>La Multiple +Splendeur</i>, which has given definite expression to these ethical ideas, +was originally intended to be called <i>Admirez-vous les Uns les Autres</i>. +In this book self-surrender is considered as the highest ideal, the gift +of oneself to the whole world, the distribution of oneself among all +people. No longer, as in the earlier books, are energy, strength, and +conquest by strength, the quelling of resistance, the ultimate sense of +life, but goodness, scattering oneself broadcast, becoming the all by +surrender to the all. Greatness in this new sense can only arise by +ecstatic admiration. 'Il faut aimer pour découvrir avec génie.' +Admiration and love are the strongest forces of the world. Love will be +the highest form of the new relations—it will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> regulate all earthly +relationships; love shall be the social levelling.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">L'amour dont la puissance encore est inconnue,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Dans sa profondeur douce et sa charité nue,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Ira porter la joie égale aux résignés;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Les sacs ventrus de l'or seront saignés</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Un soir d'ardente et large équité rouge;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Disparaîtront palais, banques, comptoirs et bouges;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Tout sera simple et clair, quand l'orgueil sera mort,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Quand l'homme, au lieu de croire à l'égoïste effort,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Qui s'éterniserait, en une âme immortelle,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Dispensera vers tous sa vie accidentelle;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Des paroles, qu'aucun livre ne fait prévoir,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Débrouilleront ce qui paraît complexe et noir;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Le faible aura sa part dans l'existence entière,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Il aimera son sort—et la matière</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Confessera peut-être, alors, ce qui fut Dieu.<a name="FNanchor_10_128" id="FNanchor_10_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_128" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>And in still greater, still more monumental expression, in stone tables +of the law as it were, Verhaeren has compressed his new moral idea in a +single poem:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Si nous nous admirons vraiment les uns les autres,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Du fond même de notre ardeur et notre foi,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Vous les penseurs, vous les savants, vous les apôtres,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Pour les temps qui viendront vous extrairez la loi.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Nous apportons, ivres du monde et de nous-mêmes,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Des cÅ“urs d'hommes nouveaux dans le vieil univers.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Les Dieux sont loin et leur louange et leur blasphème;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Notre force est en nous et nous avons souffert.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Nous admirons nos mains, nos yeux et nos pensées,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Même notre douleur qui devient notre orgueil;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Toute recherche est fermement organisée</span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Pour fouiller l'inconnu dont nous cassons le seuil.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">S'il est encor là -bas des caves de mystère</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Où tout flambeau s'éteint ou recule effaré,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Plutôt que d'en peupler les coins par des chimères</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Nous préférons ne point savoir que nous leurrer.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Un infini plus sain nous cerne et nous pénètre;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Notre raison monte plus haut; notre cÅ“ur bout;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et nous nous exaltons si bellement des êtres</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Que nous changeons le sens que nous avons de tout.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Cerveau, tu règnes seul sur nos actes lucides;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Aimer, c'est asservir; admirer, se grandir;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">O tel profond vitrail, dans l'ombre des absides,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Qui reflète la vie et la fait resplendir!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Aubes, matins, midis et soirs, toute lumière</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Est aussitôt muée en or et en beauté,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Il exalte l'espace et le ciel et la terre</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et transforme le monde à travers sa clarté.<a name="FNanchor_11_129" id="FNanchor_11_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_129" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p><i>This sensation of recognising oneself in all things by enthusiasm</i>, of +living with everything that has existence and a visible form, is +pantheism, is a Teutonic conception of the universe. But in Verhaeren +pantheism finds its very last intensification. Identity is to him not +only cerebral knowledge, but experience; identity is not the sensation +of being similar to things in body and soul, but an indissoluble unity. +Whosoever admires a thing so wholly that he goes down to the roots of +his feeling, that he dissolves and denies himself in order to be wholly +this other thing, is at this moment of ecstasy identical with it. +Ecstasy is no longer what it means in the Greek derivation, the fact of +stepping out of oneself,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> of losing oneself; it signifies, in addition +to that, the finding of oneself in the other thing. And with this +Verhaeren's cosmic conception goes beyond pantheism. He not only senses +things as though he were their brother; not only does he sense himself +in them, he himself lives them. Not only does he feel his blood pouring +into other beings, he no longer feels any blood of his own at all; he +only feels this strange, glowing sap of the world in his veins. I know +of no more fiery eruption than those moments of Verhaeren when he is no +longer able to distinguish the world from his ego, this unique cosmic +intoxication:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Je ne distingue plus le monde de moi-même,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Je suis l'ample feuillage et les rameaux flottants,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Je suis le sol dont je foule les cailloux pâles</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et l'herbe des fossés où soudain je m'affale</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Ivre et fervent, hagard, heureux et sanglotant.<a name="FNanchor_12_130" id="FNanchor_12_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_130" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>All the forms of the elements are a personal experience to him: +'J'existe en tout ce qui m'entoure et me pénètre.'<a name="FNanchor_13_131" id="FNanchor_13_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_131" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> All that has +happened becomes to him a manifestation of his own body; he feels all +cosmic happenings as personal experiences:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Oh! les rythmes fougueux de la nature entière</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et les sentir et les darder à travers soi!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Vivre les mouvements répandus dans les bois,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Le sol, les vents, la mer et les tonnerres;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Vouloir qu'en son cerveau tressaille l'univers.<a name="FNanchor_14_132" id="FNanchor_14_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_132" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Here the billows of enthusiasm dash higher and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> higher, this call to +union by enthusiasm grows to an ever more passionate command:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Exaltez-vous encore et comprenez-vous mieux,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Reconnaissez-vous donc et magnifiez-vous</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Dans l'ample et myriadaire splendeur des choses!<a name="FNanchor_15_133" id="FNanchor_15_133"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_133" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>For if men hitherto have arrived at no clear and harmonious relationship +with one another, that was because, so Verhaeren thinks, they had not +admiration sufficient, because they were too suspicious of one another, +because they had too little faith. 'Magnifiez-vous donc et +comprenez-vous mieux!'<a name="FNanchor_16_134" id="FNanchor_16_134"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_134" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> he calls out to them, 'admirez-vous les uns +les autres!' and here, in the last phase of his knowledge, he is again +in agreement with the great American, who, in his poem <i>Starting from +Paumanok</i>, preaches:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">I say no man has ever yet been half devout enough,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">None has ever yet adored or worshipped half enough,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">None has begun to think how divine he himself is, and</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">how certain the future is.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>For the highest pleasure is only in this highest ecstasy. And therefore +these ideals of Verhaeren are not cold, sober commandments, but a +passionate hymn.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Aimer avec ferveur soi-même en tous les autres</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Qui s'exaltent de même en de mêmes combats</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Vers le même avenir dont on entend le pas;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Aimer leur cÅ“ur et leur cerveau pareils aux vôtres</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Parce qu'ils ont souffert, en des jours noirs et fous,</span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Même angoisse, même affre et même deuil que vous.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et s'énivrer si fort de l'humaine bataille</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">—Pâle et flottant reflet des monstrueux assauts</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Ou des groupements d'or des étoiles, là -haut—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Qu'on vit en tout ce qui agit, lutte ou tressaille</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et qu'on accepte avidement, le cÅ“ur ouvert,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">L'âpre et terrible loi qui régit l'univers.<a name="FNanchor_17_135" id="FNanchor_17_135"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_135" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p><i>To raise these mystic moments of ecstasy, these seconds of identity, +which every one in his life experiences in quite rare and strange +moments, to permanency, to a constant, unconquerable feeling of +life—this is Verhaeren's highest aim</i>. His cosmic conception is +concentrated in this supreme ideal of an incessantly felt identity of +the ego with its environment, of an identity ever fired anew by passion.</p> + +<p>For not till nothing more is contemplation and everything is experience, +not till this vast enrichment is accomplished, does life cease to be +vegetative, indifferent, and somnolent, not till then does it turn to +pure delight. Not to feel individual feelings of pleasure, but to feel +life itself in all its forms as supreme pleasure, is the last goal of +Verhaeren's art. What he says of Juliers, the hero of Flanders, 'son +existence était sa volupté,'<a name="FNanchor_18_136" id="FNanchor_18_136"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_136" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> <i>the fact of life itself was his +pleasure</i>, is also his own highest longing. He does not want life that; +he may fill out the span that is allotted to every mortal, but that he +may consciously enjoy, and to the full, every minute of life as a +delight and as;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> happiness. And in such a moment of ecstasy he says,</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Il me semble jusqu'à ce jour n'avoir vécu</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Que pour mourir et non pour vivre,<a name="FNanchor_19_137" id="FNanchor_19_137"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_137" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>lines that seem to me unforgettable, as the highest ecstasy of vitality.</p> + +<p>And, wonderful to say, here too the circle is closed, here too the end +of Verhaeren's know-ledge—as we have seen in so many things with +him—is a return to the beginning. Here too there is nothing save an +inherited instinct which has become a rapt consciousness. His first book +and his last ones, <i>Les Flamandes</i>, as well as <i>Les Rythmes Souverains</i> +and <i>Les Blés Mouvants,</i> celebrate life—the first, it is true, only +life's outer form, the dull enjoyment of the senses: the last books, +however, celebrate the conscious, intensified, sublimated feeling of +life. Verhaeren's whole evolution—here again in harmony with the great +poets of our nation, with Nietzsche and Dehmel—is not suppression, but +a conscious intensification of original instincts. Just as in—his first +books he described his native province, and again in his last, save that +now the land is bounded by the horizons of the whole world, here again +the feeling of life returns as the sense of life, but it is now enriched +with all the knowledge he has acquired, with all the victories he has +won. Passion, which was in his first book a chaotic revolt, has here +become a law; the instinctive<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> sensation of pleasure in health has been +transformed into a deliberate and conscious pleasure in life and in all +its forms. Now again Verhaeren feels the great pride of a strong man:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Je marche avec l'orgueil d'aimer l'air et la terre,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">D'être immense et d'être fou</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et de mêler le monde et tout</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">À cet enivrement de vie élémentaire.<a name="FNanchor_20_138" id="FNanchor_20_138"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_138" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The health of the strong race he once celebrated in the lads and lasses +of his native province, he now sings in himself. And so strong is the +identity between his ego and the world that he, desiring to sing the +beauty of the whole world, is now compelled to include himself and to +celebrate his own body. He who of old hated his body as a prison out of +which he could not escape to flee from himself, he who wished to 'spit +himself out,' now fits into the hymn of the world a stanza in +celebration of his own ego:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">J'aime mes yeux, mes bras, mes mains, ma chair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">mon torse</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et mes cheveux amples et blonds,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et je voudrais, par mes poumons,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Boire l'espace entier pour en gonfler ma force.<a name="FNanchor_21_139" id="FNanchor_21_139"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_139" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The feeling of identity has given him absolute identity in regard to +himself.</p> + +<p>It is not in vanity that he celebrates himself, but in gratitude. For +the body is to him only a means of sensing the beauty, power, and +beneficence of the world, is to him a wonderful possibility<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> of enjoying +things by strength in strong passion. And wonderful are these thanks of +an ageing man to his eyes and ears and chest for still permitting him to +feel earth's beauty with all the fervour of old:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Soyez remerciés, mes yeux,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">D'être restés si clairs, sous mon front déjà vieux,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Pour voir au loin bouger et vibrer la lumière;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et vous, mes mains, de tressaillir dans le soleil;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et vous, mes doigts, de vous dorer aux fruits vermeils</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Pendus au long du mur, près des roses trémières.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Soyez remercié, mon corps,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">D'être ferme, rapide, et frémissant encor</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Au toucher des vents prompts ou des brises profondes;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et vous, mon torse clair et mes larges poumons,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">De respirer au long des mers ou sur les monts,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">L'air radieux et vif qui baigne et mord les mondes.<a name="FNanchor_22_140" id="FNanchor_22_140"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_140" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Thus, too, he now celebrates all things to which he is related—his +body; the race and the ancestors to whom he owes his being; the country +fields that have given him youth; the cities that have given him his +vast outlook: he celebrates Europe and America, the past and the future. +<i>And just as he feels himself to be strong and healthy, so too his +feeling conceives of the whole world as healthy and great</i>. That is the +incomparable and, probably, the unparalleled thing in Verhaeren's +verses, what makes him so exceedingly dear to many as to me, that here +cheerfulness, worldly pleasure, joy, and ecstasy are sensed not only +intellectually as pride, but that this pleasure is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> felt positively <i>in +the body</i>, with all the fibres of the blood, with all the muscles and +nerves of the man. His stanzas are really, as Bazalgette so beautifully +says, 'une décharge d'électricité humaine,'<a name="FNanchor_23_141" id="FNanchor_23_141"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_141" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> a discharge of human, of +physical electricity. Joy here becomes a physical excess, an +intoxication, a superabundance without parallel:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Nous apportons, ivres du monde et de nous-mêmes,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Des cÅ“urs d'hommes nouveaux dans le vieil univers.<a name="FNanchor_24_142" id="FNanchor_24_142"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_142" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>There is now no disharmony between the individual poems; they are one +single bubbling up of enthusiasm, 'un enivrement de soi-même'; over the +many convulsive, quivering, irregular ecstasies of old now flames the +ecstasy of the whole feeling of life. This ecstasy stands in our days +like a figure proud, strong, and erect, exultingly flourishing the torch +of passion aloft to greet the future, 'vers la joie'!</p> + +<p>Here ends Verhaeren's ethic work. And I believe that no exaltation, no +knowledge can again change this last pure form, or make it still more +beautiful. A vast expenditure of force, the effort of one of our +strongest and most incomparable men, has here reached its goal. Once +force seemed to him to be the strength of the world; now, however, in +his purer knowledge, he sees it in goodness, in admiration, in that +force which, with the same intensity as turned it outwards<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> of old, is +now directed inwards; which no longer constrains to conquest, but to +self-surrender, to a boundless humility. Over the immense savagery and +apparent chaos of the first works this knowledge now arches this rainbow +of reconciliation, over <i>Les Forcés Tumultueuses</i> shines <i>La Multiple +Splendeur</i>. And to himself may be applied the words he dedicated to his +hymn of all humanity—'La joie et la bonté sont les fleurs de sa +force.'<a name="FNanchor_25_143" id="FNanchor_25_143"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_143" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h5>FOOTNOTES:</h5> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_119" id="Footnote_1_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_119"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> G. Le Cardonnel et Ch. Vellay, <i>La Littérature +Contemporaine.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_120" id="Footnote_2_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_120"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> 'Autour de ma Maison' (<i>La Multiple Splendeur</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_121" id="Footnote_3_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_121"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> <i>Ecce Homo!</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_122" id="Footnote_4_122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_122"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> 'La Ferveur' (<i>La Multiple Splendeur</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_123" id="Footnote_5_123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_123"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> 'La Vie' (<i>Ibid.</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_124" id="Footnote_6_124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_124"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> 'L'Action' (<i>Les Visages de la Vie</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_125" id="Footnote_7_125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_125"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> 'L'Impossible' (<i>Les Forces Tumultueuses</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_126" id="Footnote_8_126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_126"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> 'Les Rêves' (<i>La Multiple Splendeur</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_127" id="Footnote_9_127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_127"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> 'L'Impossible' (<i>Les Forces Tumultueuses</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_128" id="Footnote_10_128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_128"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> 'Un Soir' (<i>Les Forces Tumultueuses</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_129" id="Footnote_11_129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_129"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> 'La Ferveur' (<i>La Multiple Splendeur</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_130" id="Footnote_12_130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_130"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> 'Autour de ma Maison' (<i>La Multiple Splendeur</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_131" id="Footnote_13_131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_131"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> 'La Joie' (<i>Ibid</i>.).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_132" id="Footnote_14_132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_132"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> 'L'En-avant' (<i>Les Forces Tumultueuses</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_133" id="Footnote_15_133"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_133"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> 'La Louange du Corps Humain' (<i>La Multiple Splendeur</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_134" id="Footnote_16_134"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_134"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> <i>Ibid. (Ibid.)</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_135" id="Footnote_17_135"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_135"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> 'La Vie' (<i>La Multiple Splendeur</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_136" id="Footnote_18_136"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_136"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> 'Guillaume de Juliers' (<i>Les Héros</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_137" id="Footnote_19_137"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_137"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> 'Un Matin' (<i>Les Forces Tumultueuses</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_138" id="Footnote_20_138"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_138"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> 'Un Matin' (<i>Les Forces Tumultueuses</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_139" id="Footnote_21_139"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_139"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> <i>Ibid. (Ibid.)</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_140" id="Footnote_22_140"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_140"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> 'La Joie' (<i>La Multiple Splendeur</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_141" id="Footnote_23_141"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_141"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> 'Léon Bazalgette', <i>Émile Verhaeren</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_142" id="Footnote_24_142"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_142"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> 'La Ferveur' (<i>La Multiple Splendeur</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_143" id="Footnote_25_143"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_143"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> 'Les Mages' (<i>La Multiple Splendeur</i>).<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="LOVE" id="LOVE"></a>LOVE</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Ceux qui vivent d'amour vivent d'éternité.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 15.5em;">E.V., <i>Les Heures d'après-midi.</i></span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>Filled with contemporary spirit as Verhaeren's work is, there is one +point in which it appears to stray from our epoch, to be remote from the +artistic preoccupations of other poets. Verhaeren's poetry is almost +entirely free from eroticism. The problem of love is with him far from +being, as it is with most poets, the feeling at the root of all +feelings; it is hardly ever a motive force in his work; it remains a +little arabesque delicately curved above his massive architecture. +Verhaeren's enthusiasms spring from other sources. Love is for him +almost without a sexual shade of meaning, perfectly identical with +enthusiasm, self-surrender, ecstasy; and the difference between the +sexes does not seem to be an essential, but only an incidental form +among the thousandfold militant forms of life. The love of woman, sexual +necessity, is scarcely a force greater than any other in the circle of +forces, never the most important or actually the root-force, as it is +(for instance) to Dehmel, who derives the consciousness of all great +cosmic phases of knowledge from the experience of love.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> Verhaeren's +horizons are illuminated, not by the flame of the erotic, but by the +passionate fire of purely intellectual impulses. His first books, those +lyric volumes which are nearly always a poet's confessions of love, were +devoted to landscapes and then to social phenomena, to monks, and to men +who toil with their hands. The strength of his drama pulses in conflicts +exclusively masculine. Thus his work, already vastly removed from that +of the other lyrists of our time, is seen to be still more isolated. To +Verhaeren love is only a single page, not the first and not the last, in +the book of the world: this poet has lavished too much glowing passion +and ecstatic feeling on all individual things and the universe for the +cry of the desire of woman to ring higher than all other voices.</p> + +<p>This lack of accentuation of eroticism in Verhaeren's work does not by +any means strike me as a weakness, a missing nerve in his artistic +organism. It may read like a paradox, but it must be said: just this +apparent artistic deficiency indicates personal strength. Verhaeren's +masculinity is so pronounced and strong that woman could never become +the root-problem of his passion, or shake him in the foundations of his +fate. To a really strong man, love, sexual love, is a matter of course; +a sterling man does not feel it as an obstacle and not as a vital +conflict, but as a necessity, like nourishment, air, and liberty. But a +thing that is a matter of course is never conceived by an artist as a +problem. In<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> his youth Verhaeren was never perplexed by love, for the +simple reason that he did not attach sufficient importance to it, +because his poetic interests were in the first place directed to a +mightier possession, a philosophy of life. A sterling man, as Verhaeren +conceives him, does not spend his strength in sexual love. For such a +man the metaphysical instinct, the longing for knowledge, the need of +finding his inner statics in the cosmos, goes before love. 'Eve voulait +aimer, Adam voulait connaître.'<a name="FNanchor_1_144" id="FNanchor_1_144"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_144" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> Only to woman is love the sense of +life; to man, in Verhaeren's idea, the sense of life is knowledge. He +expressed this sound idea still more clearly in an early poem:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Les forts montent la vie ainsi qu'un escalier,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Sans voir d'abord que les femmes sur leurs passages</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Tendent vers eux leurs seins, leurs fronts et leur visages.<a name="FNanchor_2_145" id="FNanchor_2_145"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_145" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Paying no heed to the seductions of love, the strong men, the really +great, ascend to the skies, to spiritual knowledge; they gather the +fruits of stars and comets; and then, only then, when they are +returning, tired by their lonely wandering, do they observe women, and +lay down in their hands the knowledge of the great worlds. <i>Not in the +beginning, in the vehement days of youth, but only when manhood is +established, only in the time of inner maturity, can woman become a +great experience for Verhaeren</i>. He must<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> first of all have acquired a +firm footing, must know his place in the world, before he can yield +himself up to love. It is strange that the sonnet I have quoted should +have been written in youth, because, like a presentiment, it relates the +fate of his own life in advance. For the images of women never stopped +his path nor turned him aside from it; love, if I may say so, only +occupied his senses and never absorbed his soul. Not till later, till +the years when the crisis was undermining his body, when his nerves were +giving way under the terrible strain, when solitude reared itself before +his face like an inseparable foe, did a woman enter his life. Then, and +not till then, did love and marriage—the personal symbol of eternal, +exterior order—give him inward rest. And to this woman the only +love-poems he ever wrote are addressed. In Verhaeren's work, which is +graded like a trilogy—in this symphony that is often brutal—there is a +quiet, soft andante, a trilogy in the trilogy, one of love. From the +point of view of art, these three books, <i>Les Heures Claires, Les Heures +d'Après-midi,</i> and <i>Les Heures du Soir</i>, are not less in value than his +great works, but they are more gentle. From this savage and passionate +man one might have expected visionary, seething ecstasies, a tempestuous +discharge of erotic feeling; but these books are a wonderful +disappointment. They are not spoken to the crowd, but to one woman only, +and for that reason they are not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> spoken loudly, but with a voice +subdued. Religious consciousness—for with Verhaeren all that is poetic +is religious in a new sense—finds a new form here. <i>Here Verhaeren does +not preach, he prays</i>. These little pages are the privacy of his +personal life, the confession of a passion which is great indeed, but +veiled as it were with a delicate shame. 'Oh! la tendresse des forts!' +is Bazalgette's inspired comment. And in truth, it is impossible to +imagine anything more touching than the sight of this mighty fighter +here lowering his resonant voice to the soft breathings of devotion. +These verses are quite simple, spoken low, as though wild and too +passionate words might imperil so noble a feeling, as though a strong +man, a brutal man, who is afraid of hurting a delicate woman with a +touch accustomed to bronze, should lay his hand on hers only softly, +most cautiously.</p> + +<p>How beautiful these poems are! When you read them, they take you softly +by the hand and lead you into a garden. Here you see no more the murky +horizon of the city, the workshops; you do not hear the din of streets, +nor that resonant rhythm that raged along in cataract on cataract; you +hear a gentle music as of a playing fountain. Passion does not project +you here to the great ecstasies of humanity and the sky; it has no will +to make you wild and fervid; it soothes you to tenderness and devotion. +The strident voice has grown soft, these colours are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> of transparent +crystal, this song seems to express the vast silence from which those +great passions drew their force. But these poems are not artificial. +They too are of one woof with the elements of Nature; but not with the +great, wild, and heart-moving world, not with the fiery sky, not with +thunder and tempests: it is only a garden that you surmise here, a +peaceful cottage, with birds singing about it, where there are +sweet-scented flowers and silence hanging between trees in blossom. The +adventures are insignificant in feature. You breathe the poetry of +everyday life, but not that of open and wildly surging roads—only the +poetry of closed walls, softly spoken dialogues about little things, the +tenderest secrets of home. These are the experiences of personal +existence, this is the ordinary day between the great ecstasies. The +lamp burns softly in the room, the silence is full of wonderful +tenderness:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et l'on se dit les simples choses:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Le fruit qu'on a cueilli dans le jardin;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">La fleur qui s'est ouverte,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">D'entre les mousses vertes,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et la pensée éclose, en des émois soudains,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Au souvenir d'un mot de tendresse fanée</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">Surpris au fond d'un vieux tiroir,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">Sur un billet de l'autre année.<a name="FNanchor_3_146" id="FNanchor_3_146"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_146" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Here you have the deepest feeling, thanks and devotion, not in ecstasy +to God and the world, but addressed to one single being. For Verhaeren<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> +is one who is ever receiving gifts, who always feels that he is being +heaped with favours, who has always to give thanks for life and all its +miracles. Without measure, with that zest, with that incessantly renewed +joy which is the deepest secret of his art, he here again and again +expresses love and gratitude. As Orpheus rises to Euridice from the +nether world, here the sick lover ascends to the lady who has saved him +from the dark. And again and again he thanks her for the good hours of +quietness; again and again he reminds her of their first meeting, of the +sunny happiness of these present days:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Avec mes sens, avec mon cÅ“ur et mon cerveau,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Avec mon être entier tendu comme un flambeau</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Vers ta bonté et vers ta charité,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Je t'aime et te louange et je te remercie</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">D'être venue, un jour, si simplement,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Par les chemins du dévouement,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Prendre en tes mains bienfaisantes, ma vie.<a name="FNanchor_4_147" id="FNanchor_4_147"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_147" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>These verses are genuflexions, folded hands, love that by humility +becomes religion.</p> + +<p>But still more beautiful and significant, perhaps, is the second volume +of the trilogy <i>Les Heures d'Après-midi</i>; for here again a new thing has +been discovered, a moral beauty exceeding erotic sensation, a greatness +of feeling such as can only be conferred by the noblest experience of +life. It is a book after fifteen years of wedlock. But in this time love +has not grown<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> poorer. <i>The deepest secret of Verhaeren's life, never to +let his feelings grow cold and sink to a dead level, but unceasingly to +enhance them, has denied a state of rest to his love also, and raised +even this to something eternally animated and intensified</i>. And so his +love has been able to celebrate the highest triumph, <i>vaincre +l'habitude</i>, to conquer monotony and the dearth of feeling. Perpetual +ecstasy has made it strong. Only he who renews his passion really lives +it. When love pauses, it passes. 'Je te regarde, et tous les jours je te +découvre.<a name="FNanchor_5_148" id="FNanchor_5_148"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_148" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> Every day has here renewed the feeling and made it +independent of its beginning, independent of sensual pleasure. As in +Verhaeren's whole work, passion has here been spiritualised, ecstasy +soars beyond individual experience. It is no longer an external +appearance that the now ageing couple love in each other. Lips have +paled, the body has lost its freshness, the flesh its gloss and colour; +the years of union have written their charactery in the face. Only love +has not withered: it has grown stronger than the physical attraction; it +has defied change, because it has itself changed and incessantly been +intensified. It is now unshakeable and inalienable:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Puisque je sais que rien au monde</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Ne troublera jamais notre être exalté</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Et que notre âme est trop profonde</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Pour que l'amour dépende encor de la beauté.<a name="FNanchor_6_149" id="FNanchor_6_149"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_149" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p> + +<p>The temporal has here been overcome, and even the future, even death +have no longer any terrors. Without fear of losing himself—for 'qui vit +d'amour vit d'éternité'—the lover can think of him who stands at the +end of all ways. No fear can touch him more, for he knows he is loved, +and Verhaeren has given wonderful expression to this feeling in a poem:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Vous m'avez dit, tel soir, des paroles si belles</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Que sans doute les fleurs, qui se penchaient vers nous,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Soudain nous out aimés et que l'une d'entre elles,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Pour nous toucher tous deux, tomba sur nos genoux.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Vous me parliez des temps prochains où nos années,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Comme des fruits trop mûrs, se laisseraient cueillir;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Comment éclaterait le glas des destinées,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et comme on s'aimerait en se sentant vieillir.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Votre voix m'enlaçait comme une chère étreinte,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et votre cÅ“ur brûlait si tranquillement beau</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Qu'en ce moment j'aurais pu voir s'ouvrir sans crainte</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Les tortueux chemins qui vont vers le tombeau.<a name="FNanchor_7_150" id="FNanchor_7_150"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_150" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The third volume, <i>Les Heures du Soir</i>, has wonderfully closed the +peaceful cycle with a series of poems, which no doubt have old age for +their motive, but which show no trace of lassitude in the artist. Summer +has turned to autumn, but how opulent and ripe this autumn is: the +golden fruits of memory hang down and glow in the reflection of the sun +that has been so well loved. Once again love passes with bright images: +he is changed and purified, but as masterful and as strong as on the +first day.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p> + +<p>I love these little poems of Verhaeren's with a different and no less a +love than that I do his great and important lyric works. I have never +been able to understand why these poems—for as far as the iconoclastic +work is concerned, respect for tradition and fear of innovations may +have scared many people away—have not enjoyed a widespread popularity. +For never since the tenderly vibrating music of Verlaine's <i>La Bonne +Chanson</i>, never since the letters of the Brownings, has wedded happiness +been so marvellously celebrated as in these stanzas. Nowhere else has +love been spiritualised so nobly, with such crystal purity, nowhere else +has the synthesis of love and wedlock been more intrinsically fashioned. +It is with a quite especial love that I love these <i>poèmes francs et +doux</i>, for here behind the savage, ecstatic poet, the passionate and +strong poet of <i>Les Villes Tentaculaires</i>, another poet appears, the +simple, quiet, and modest poet, the gentle and kind poet, as we know him +in life. Here, on the other side of the poetic ecstasy, we have the +noble personality of Verhaeren, in whom we revere, not only a poetic +force, but a human perfection as well. By the luminous gate of these +frail poems goes the path to his own life.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h5>FOOTNOTES:</h5> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_144" id="Footnote_1_144"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_144"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> 'Le Paradis' (<i>Les Rythmes Souverains</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_145" id="Footnote_2_145"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_145"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> 'Hommage' (<i>Au Bord de la Route</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_146" id="Footnote_3_146"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_146"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> 'C'est la bonne heure où la lampe s'allume' (<i>Les Heures +d'Après-midi</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_147" id="Footnote_4_147"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_147"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> 'Avec mes sens, avec mon cÅ“ur et mon cerveau'. (<i>Les +Heures d'Après-midi</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_148" id="Footnote_5_148"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_148"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> 'Voici quinze ans déjà ' (<i>Les Heures d'Après-midi</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_149" id="Footnote_6_149"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_149"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> 'Les baisers morts des défuntes années' (<i>Ibid.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_150" id="Footnote_7_150"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_150"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> 'Vous m'avez dit, tel soir' (<i>Les Heures d'Après-midi</i>).<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="THE_ART_OF_VERHAERENS_LIFE" id="THE_ART_OF_VERHAERENS_LIFE"></a>THE ART OF VERHAEREN'S LIFE</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Je suis d'accord avec moi-même</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et c'est assez.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 16em;">É.V.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Camille Lemonnier, the master of Verhaeren's youth, the friend of his +prime, at the banquet offered by Belgium to the poet of <i>Toute la +Flandre,</i> spoke of their thirty years' friendship, and in a powerful +speech expressed a striking idea. 'The time will come,' he said, 'when a +man, if he is to appear with any credit before his fellow-men, will have +to prove that he has been a man himself'; and then he praised Verhaeren, +showing how completely his friend fulfilled this demand of the future, +how wholly he had been a man, with the perfection of a great work of +art. For whoever would create a great work of art, must himself be a +work of art. Whoever would influence his contemporaries, not only as an +artist, but morally as well, whoever would shape and raise our life to +his own pattern, gives us the right to ask what manner of life his own +has been, what the art of his life has been.</p> + +<p>In Verhaeren's case, there stands behind the poetic work of art the +incomparable masterpiece of a great life, a wonderful, victorious +battle<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> for this art. For only a living humanity that had achieved +harmony, not supple, ingenious intellectuality, could have arrived at +such insight into knowledge. Verhaeren was not intrinsically a +harmonious nature; he had, therefore, to make a double effort to +transform the chaos of his feeling into a world. He was a restless and +an intemperate man who had to tame himself; all the germs of dissipation +and debauch were in his nature, all the possibilities of prodigality and +self-destruction. Only a life secure in its aims, supported on a strong +foundation, could force harmony from the conflicting inclinations he +possessed; only a great humanity could compress such heterogeneous +forces to one force. At the end and at the beginning of Verhaeren's +works, at the end and at the beginning of his life, stands the same +great soundness of health. The boy grew out of the healthy Flemish +fields and was from his birth gifted with all the advantages of a robust +race—and above all with passion. In the years of his youth he gave free +rein to this passion for intemperance; he raged himself out in all +directions; was intemperate in study, in drinking, in company, in his +sexual life—he was intemperate in his art. He strained his strength to +its uttermost limit, but he pulled himself together at the last moment, +and returned to himself and the health that was his birthright. His +harmony of to-day is not a gift of fate, but a prize won from life. At +the critical moment<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> Verhaeren had the power to turn round, in order, +like Antæus, to recover his strength in the well of rejuvenescence of +his native province and in the calm of family life.</p> + +<p>Earth called him back, and his native province. Poetically and humanly, +his return to Belgium signifies his deliverance, the triumph of the art +of his life. Like the ship that he sings in <i>La Guirlande des Dunes</i>, +the ship that has crossed all the seas of the world, and, though half +dashed to pieces, ever comes sailing home again to Flanders, he himself +has anchored again in the harbour whence he set sail. His poetry has +ended where it began. In his last work he has celebrated the Flanders he +sang as a youth, no longer, however, as a provincial poet, but as a +national poet. Now he has ranged the past and the future along with the +present, now he has sung Flanders too, not in individual poems, but as +an entity in one poem. 'Verhaeren élargit de son propre souffle +l'horizon de la petite patrie, et, comme le fit Balzac de son ingrate et +douce Touraine, il annexe aux plaines flamandes le beau royaume humain +de son idéalité et de son art.'<a name="FNanchor_1_151" id="FNanchor_1_151"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_151" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> He has returned to his own race, to +the bosom of Nature, to the eternal resources of health and life.</p> + +<p>And now he lives at Caillou-qui-bique, a little hamlet in the Walloon +district. Three or four houses stand there, far away from the railway,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> +sequestered in the wood, and yet near the fields; and of these little +houses the smallest, with few rooms and a quiet garden, is his. Here he +leads the peaceful existence which is necessary for the growth of great +work; here he holds solitary communion with Nature, undistracted by the +voices of men and the hubbub of great towns; here he dreams his cosmic +visions. He has the same healthy and simple food as the country people +around him; he goes for early morning walks across the fields, talks to +the peasants and the tradesmen of the village as though they were his +equals; they tell him of their cares and petty transactions, and he +listens to them with that unfeigned interest which he has for every form +and variety of life. As he strides across the fields his great poems +come into being, his step as it grows quicker and quicker gives them +their rhythm, the wind gives them their melody, the distance their +outlook. Any one who has been his guest there will recognise many +features of the landscape in his poems, many a cottage, many a corner, +many people, the little arts of the artisan. But how fugitive, how small +everything appears there, everything that in the poem, thanks to the +fire of the vision, is glowing, strong, and radiant with the promise of +eternity! Verhaeren lives in his Walloon home in the autumn, but in +spring and early summer he flees from his illness to the sea—flees from +hay-fever. This illness of Verhaeren's has always seemed to me +symbolical of his art<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> and of his vital feeling, for it is, if I may say +so, an elemental illness that, when pollen flies along the breeze, when +spring lies out in sultry heat across the fields, a man's eyes should be +filled with tears, his senses irritated, and his head oppressed. This +suffering with Nature, this feeling in oneself of the pain which goes +before the spring, this torment of the breaking forth of sap, of +pressure in the air, has always appeared to me a symbol of the elemental +and physical way that Verhaeren feels Nature. For it is as though +Nature, which gives him all ecstasies, all its own dark secrets, gives +him its own pain as well, as though its web reached into his blood, his +nerves, as though the identity between the poet and the world had here +attained a higher degree than in other men. In these painful first days +of spring he flees to the sea, whose singing winds and sounding waves he +loves. There he works rarely, for the restlessness of the sea makes him +restless himself; it gives him only dreams, no works.</p> + +<p>But Verhaeren is no longer a primitive spirit. He is attached by too +many bonds to his contemporaries, too much in contact with all modern +striving and creation, to be able to confine himself wholly to a rural +existence. There is in him that wonderful double harmony of modern men +which lives in brotherly communion with Nature and yet clings to +Nature's supreme flower of culture. During the winter Verhaeren lives in +Paris, the most alive of all cities; for, though<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> quiet is an inner need +of his, he looks on the unrest and noise of great cities as a precious +stimulant. Here he receives those impressions of noisy life which, +remembered in tranquillity, become poems. He loves to drift in the +many-voiced confusion of teeming streets, to receive inspiration from +pictures, books, and men. For years, in intimate cohesion with all that +is coming into existence and growing in strength, he has followed the +most delicate stirrings of the evolution of art, here too in the +happiest manner combining detachment with sympathy. For he does not live +really in Paris itself, but in Saint-Cloud, in a little flat which is +full of pictures and books, and usually of good friends as well. For +friendship, living, cheerful comradeship, has always been a necessity of +life to him, to him who has the faculty of giving himself so +whole-heartedly in friendship; and there is hardly one among the poets +of to-day who has so many friends, and so many of the best. Rodin, +Maeterlinck, Gide, Mockel, Vielé-Griffin, Signac, Rysselberghe, Rilke, +Romain Rolland, all these, who have done great things for our time, are +his close friends. With associates of this stamp he passes his life at +Paris, carefully avoiding what is called society, aloof from the salons +where fame is cultured and the transactions of art are negotiated. His +innermost being is simplicity. And all his life long this modesty has +made him indifferent to financial success, because he has never desired +to rise<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> above the primitive necessities of his life, never known the +longing to dazzle and to be envied. While others, goaded by the success +of their acquaintances, have been thrown off their balance and have +worked themselves to death in fever, he has gone on his way calm and +unheeding. He has worked, and let his work grow slowly and organically. +And thus fame, which slowly but with irresistible sureness has grown to +his stature, has not disturbed him. It is a pleasure to see how he has +stood this last and greatest test, how he shoulders his fame stoutly, +with joy but without pride. To-day Belgium celebrates in him her +greatest poet. In France, where he was held an alien, he has forced +esteem. The greatest good has been done, however, by the fact that from +foreign races, from the whole of Europe and beyond it, from America, an +answer has come to his great reputation, that the little enmities of the +nations have called a halt before his work, and above all that it is the +younger generation who are to-day enlisted under the banner of his +enthusiasm. Inexhaustible has been his interest in young men; perhaps he +has welcomed and encouraged every beginner with only too much kindness. +For his delight in the art of others is inexhaustible; his infinite +feeling of identity makes him in the highest sense impartial and +enthusiastic, and it is a delight to see him stand in front of great +works and to learn enthusiasm from him.</p> + +<p>This apparent contrast between the art of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> poetry and the art of his +life is at first strange and surprising. For behind so passionate a poet +one would never suspect so quiet and kind a man. Only his face—which +has already allured so many painters and sculptors—speaks of passions +and ecstasies; that brow across which, under locks growing grey, the +deep lines graven by the crisis of his youth run like the furrows of a +field. The pendent moustache (like that of Nietzsche) lends his face +power and earnestness. The salient cheek-bones and sharply chiselled +lines betray his peasant extraction, which is perhaps still more +strongly accentuated by his gait, that hard, strikingly rhythmical, +bowed gait which reminds one of the plougher treading in hard toil and +in a bent posture over newly turned turf, his gait whose rhythm reminds +one again and again of his poetry. But goodness shines in his eyes, +which—<i>couleur de mer</i>—as though new-born after all the lassitude of +the years of fever, are bright and fresh with life; there is goodness, +too, in the hearty spontaneity of his gestures. In his face the first +impression is strength; the second, that this strength is tempered with +kindness. Like every noble face, it is, when translated into sculpture, +the idea of his life.</p> + +<p>Some day many people will speak of Verhaeren's art; many love it to-day +already. But I believe that nobody will be able to love the poet in the +same degree as many to-day love the art<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> of his life, this unique +personality, as people love something that can be lost and never +restored. If one at first seems to find a discord between the modesty, +gentleness, and heartiness of his humanity, and the wildness, heroism, +and hardness of his art, one at last discovers their <i>unity in +experience, in feeling</i>. When one closes the door after a conversation +with him, or one of his books after the last page, the prevailing +impression is the same: enhanced joy in life, enthusiasm, confidence in +the world, an intensified feeling of pleasure which shows life in purer, +kindlier, and more magnificent forms. This idealising effect of life +goes out equally strong from his person and from his work; every sort of +contact with him, with the poet, with the man, seems to enrich life, and +teaches one to apply to him in his turn the appreciation he always so +readily had for all the gifts of life—gratitude ever renewed and +boundlessly intensified in passion.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h5>FOOTNOTES:</h5> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_151" id="Footnote_1_151"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_151"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Vielé-Griffin, biographical note to Mockel's <i>Verhaeren.</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="THE_EUROPEAN_IMPORTANCE_OF_HIS_WORK" id="THE_EUROPEAN_IMPORTANCE_OF_HIS_WORK"></a>THE EUROPEAN IMPORTANCE OF HIS WORK</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Futur, vous m'exaltez comme autrefois mon Dieu!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 17.5em;">É.V., 'La Prière.'</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The last force of everybody, the force which finally decides the effect, +which alone and first of all is able to strain his work or his activity +to the highest possibility, is the feeling of responsibility. To be +responsible, and to feel that one is responsible, is equivalent to +looking at one's whole life as a vast debt, which one is bound to strive +with all one's strength to pay off; is equivalent to surveying one's +momentary task on earth in the whole range of its significance, +importance, and periphery, in order then to raise one's own inherent +possibilities and capacities to their most complete mastery. For most +people this earthly task is outwardly restricted in an office, in a +profession, in the fixed round of some activity. With an artist, on the +other hand, it is what one might call an infinite dimension which can +never be attained; his task is therefore an unlimited, an eternal +longing, a longing that never weakens. Since his duty can really only be +to express himself with the greatest possible perfection, this +responsibility coincides<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> with the demand that he should bring his life, +and with his life his talent, to the highest perfection, that he should, +in Goethe's sense, 'expand his narrow existence to eternity.' The artist +is responsible for his talent, because it is his task to express it. Now +the higher the idea of art is understood, the more art feels its task to +be the task of bringing the life of the universe into harmony, so much +the more must the feeling of responsibility be intensified in a creative +mind.</p> + +<p>Now, of all the poets of our day Verhaeren is the one who has felt this +feeling of responsibility most strongly. To write poetry is for him to +express not himself only, but the striving and straining of the whole +period as well, the fearful torment and the happiness that are in the +birth of the new things. Just because his work comprises all the present +and aims at expressing it in its entity, he feels himself responsible to +the future. For him a true poet must visualise the whole psychic care of +his time. For when later generations—in the same manner as they will +question monuments concerning our art, pictures concerning our painters, +social forms concerning our philosophers—ask of the verses and the +works of our contemporaries the question, What was your hope, your +feeling, the sum of your interpretation? how did you feel cities and +men, things and gods?—shall we be able to answer them? This is the +inner question of Verhaeren's artistic responsibility.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> <i>And this +feeling of responsibility has made his work great</i>. Most of the poets of +our day have been unconcerned with reality. Some of them strike up a +dancing measure, rouse and amuse people lounging in theatres; others +again tell of their own sorrow, ask for pity and compassion, they who +have never felt for others. Verhaeren, however, heedless of the approval +or disapproval of our time, turns his face towards the generations to +be:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Celui qui me lira dans les siècles, un soir,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Troublant mes vers, sous leur sommeil ou sous leur cendre,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Et ranimant leur sens lointain pour mieux comprendre</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Comment ceux d'aujourd'hui s'étaient armés d'espoir,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Qu'il sache, avec quel violent élan, ma joie</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">S'est, à travers les cris, les révoltes, les pleurs,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Ruée au combat fier et mâle des douleurs,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Pour en tirer l'amour, comme on conquiert sa proie.<a name="FNanchor_1_152" id="FNanchor_1_152"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_152" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>It was, in the last instance, this magnificent feeling of responsibility +which did not permit him to pass by any manifestation of our present +time without observing and appreciating it, for he knows that later +generations will ask the question how we sensed the new thing, which to +them is a possession and a matter of course, when it was still strange +and almost hostile. His work is the answer. The true poet of to-day, in +Verhaeren's eyes, must show forth the torment and the trouble of the +whole psychic transition, the painful discovery of the new beauty in the +new things,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> the revolt, the crisis, the struggles it costs to +understand all this, to adapt ourselves to it, and in the end to love +it. Verhaeren has attempted to express our whole time in its earthly, +its material, its psychic form. His verses lyrically represent Europe at +the turning of the century, us and our time; they consciously +contemplate the whole circuit of the things of life: <i>they write a lyric +encyclopædia of our time, the intellectual atmosphere of Europe at the +turning of the twentieth century.</i></p> + +<p>The whole of Europe speaks with his voice, speaks with a voice that +reaches beyond our time; and already from the whole of Europe comes the +answer. In Belgium Verhaeren is above all the national poet, the poet of +heaths, cities, dunes, and of the Flemish past, the great renewer of the +national pride. But he stands too near his fellow-countrymen to be +measured at his full height there. And in France, too, very few +appreciate him at his true value. Most people regard him there in his +literary aspect only and as a symbolist and decadent, an innovator of +verse, an audacious and gifted revolutionary. But very few perceive the +new and important work that is built up in his verses, very few +comprehend the entity and the logical character of his cosmic +philosophy. Nevertheless, his influence is already tangible. The new +rhythm he has created can be recognised in many poets; and such a gifted +disciple as Jules Romains has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> even brought his idea of the feeling of +cities to new impressiveness. Best of all, however, he is understood by +those Frenchmen who stand in a mystic communion with all that is great +and urgent abroad; who feel an ethical need, a longing for an inner +transmutation of values, for a re-moulding of races, for cosmopolitanism +and a union of the nations; so, above all, Léon Bazalgette, who revealed +Walt Whitman, the prophet of all strong and conscious reality in art, to +France. Most joyfully of all, however, the answer rings from those +countries which are themselves involved in deep-seated social and +ethical crises, those countries where the need of religion is a vital +instinct, which are eternally hungry for God, above all from Russia and +Germany. In Russia the poet of <i>Les Villes Tentaculaires</i> is celebrated +as he is nowhere else. As the poet of social innovations he is read in +the Russian universities, and in the circles of the intellectuals he is +regarded as the spiritual pioneer of our time. Brjussow, the +distinguished young poet, has translated him, and afforded him the +possibility of popularity. In other Slavonic countries, too, his work is +beginning to spread.</p> + +<p>Verhaeren's success, one may well say triumph, has been strongest and +most impressive in Germany; here it has been unexpectedly intensive even +to us who have worked for it. A few years have sufficed to make him as +popular here<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> I as any native poet, and the most beautiful feature of +his success is this, that people are already forgetting to look upon him +as a foreigner. Verhaeren is to-day part and parcel of German culture; +and much of our contemporary lyric poetry, its welcome turning to +optimism for example, would be unthinkable but for his work and +influence. Countless are the essays devoted to him, the recitations in +which our best elocutionists—Kainz, Moissi, Kayssler, Heine, Wiecke, +Durieux, Rosen, Gregori—have taken part; none of these interpreters, +however, were as enthusiastically applauded as was Verhaeren himself on +his <i>tournée</i> in Germany, which was a great experience no less for him +than for our public, because he gladly felt that his work was now rooted +for ever in German soil. In Scandinavia, where Johannes V. Jensen in his +essays unconsciously transcribed Verhaeren's lyric work, Ellen Key, the +inspired prophetess of the feeling of life, has hailed him as she has +hailed no other, and Georg Brandes, who crowns poets, has welcomed him +with loud acclaim. Incessantly, in an irresistible, sure ascent, +Verhaeren's fame grows. And above all, his poetry is no longer regarded +as an individual thing, but as a work, as a cosmic philosophy, as an +answer to the questions of our time, as the strongest and most beautiful +enrichment of our vital feeling. Wherever people are tired of pessimism, +tired of confused mysticism, and tired of monistic shallowness; wherever +a longing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> stirs for a pure idealistic form of contemplation, for a new +reconciliation between our new realities and the old reverence for +eternal secrets, for the secularisation of the divine, his name stands +in the front rank. An answer comes from every direction, not because his +work was a question, but because it was in itself an answer to the +unconscious demand for a new community, a demand which is being made by +men of all nations everywhere to-day.</p> + +<p>But all this is only a beginning. Works like his, which are not +paradoxical enough, not dazzling enough, to produce sudden ecstasies and +literary fashions; which, by the mere fact that they have themselves +grown organically into existence, can only grow organically, but for +that reason irresistibly, in their influence; only lay hold of the +masses slowly. Only later generations will enjoy the fruit which we, +with renewed admiration, have seen ripening from the most modest of +blossoms. But already a ring of men of all nations are joining hands, a +ring of men who perceive a new centre of spirituality in Verhaeren. And +we, the few who have wholly surrendered ourselves to his work, must +appreciate it with that feeling only which he himself has taught us as +the highest feeling of life—with enthusiasm, with gratitude ever +renewed, and with joyful admiration. For to whom in our days should one +offer more abundantly and stormily this new vital doctrine of enthusiasm +as the happiest feeling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> than to Verhaeren, to him who was the first to +wrest it in the bitterest struggles from the depths of our time, who was +the first to shape it in the material of art, the first to raise it to +the eternal law of life?</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h5>FOOTNOTES:</h5> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_152" id="Footnote_1_152"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_152"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> 'Un Soir' (<i>Les Forces Tumultueuses</i>).<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span></p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="BIBLIOGRAPHY" id="BIBLIOGRAPHY"></a>BIBLIOGRAPHY</h3> + + +<p>I. LES FLAMANDES, poèmes. Bruxelles, Hochsteyn, 1883. LES CONTES DE +MINUIT, prose. Bruxelles (Collection de la 'Jeune Belgique'), Franck, +1885.</p> + +<p>JOSEPH HEYMANS, PEINTRE, critique. Bruxelles (<i>Société Nouvelle</i>), 1885.</p> + +<p>II. LES MOINES, poèmes. Paris, Lemerre, 1886.</p> + +<p>FERNAND KHNOPFF, critique. Bruxelles (<i>Société Nouvelle</i>), 1886.</p> + +<p>III. Au BORD DE LA ROUTE, poèmes. Liège (<i>La Wallonie</i>), 1891.</p> + +<p>IV. LES SOIRS, poèmes. Bruxelles, Deman, 1887.</p> + +<p>V. LES DÉBÂCLES, poèmes. Bruxelles, Deman, 1888.</p> + +<p>VI. LES FLAMBEAUX NOIRS, poèmes. Bruxelles, Deman, 1890.</p> + +<p>VII. LES VILLAGES ILLUSOIRES, poèmes, illustrés par Georges Minne. +Bruxelles, Deman, 1895.</p> + +<p>VIII. LES APPARUS DANS MES CHEMINS, poèmes. Bruxelles, Lacomblez, 1891.</p> + +<p>LES CAMPAGNES HALLUCINÉES, poèmes, ornementés par T. van Rysselberghe. +Bruxelles, Deman, 1893.</p> + +<p>ALMANACH, poèmes, illustrés par T. van Rysselberghe. Bruxelles, +Dietrich, 1895.</p> + +<p>POÈMES (1<sup>e</sup> série, i., ii., iii.). Paris, Mercure de France, 1895.</p> + +<p>LES VILLES TENTACULAIRES, poèmes, couverture et ornementation par T. van +Rysselberghe. Bruxelles, Deman, 1896.</p> + +<p>POÈMES (2<sup>e</sup> série, iv., v., vi.). Paris, Mercure de France, 1896.</p> + +<p>LES HEURES CLAIRES, poèmes, ornementés par T. van Rysselberghe. +Bruxelles, Deman, 1896.</p> + +<p>ÉMILE VERHAEREN, 1883-1896, portrait par T. van Rysselberghe. +[Bruxelles, Deman, 1896.] (An anthology, 'pour les amis du poète,')</p> + +<p>LES AUBES, drame lyrique en 4 actes, ornementé par T. van Rysselberghe. +Bruxelles, Deman, 1898.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span></p> + +<p>ESPAÇA NEGRA, NOTAS DE VIAJE. Barcelona, Pedro Ortega, 1899.</p> + +<p>LES VISAGES DE LA VIE, poèmes, ornementés par T. van Rysselberghe. +Bruxelles, Deman, 1899.</p> + +<p>POÈMES (3<sup>e</sup> série, vii., viii., <i>Les Vignes de ma Muraille</i>). Paris, +Mercure de France, 1899.</p> + +<p>LE CLOÃŽTRE, drame en 4 actes, prose et vers, ornementé par T. van +Rysselberghe. Bruxelles, Deman, 1900.</p> + +<p>PETITES LÉGENDES, poèmes. Bruxelles, Deman, 1900.</p> + +<p>LES PETITS VIEUX. London, Hacon & Ricketts, 1901.</p> + +<p>PHILIPPE H., tragédie en 3 actes, vers et prose. Paris, Mercure de +France, 1901.</p> + +<p>LES FORCES TUMULTUEUSES, poèmes. Paris, Mercure de France, 1902.</p> + +<p>LES VILLES TENTACULAIRES, précédées des <i>Campagnes Hallucinées,</i> poèmes. +Paris, Mercure de France, 1904.</p> + +<p>TOUTE LA FLANDRE: <i>Les Tendresses Premières</i>, poèmes. Bruxelles, Deman, +1904.</p> + +<p>LES HEURES D'APRÈS-MIDI, poèmes. Bruxelles, Deman, 1905.</p> + +<p>REMBRANDT, étude. Paris, Henri Laurens [1905].</p> + +<p>IMAGES JAPONAISES, texte d'É. V ..., illustrations de Kwassou. Tokio, +1906.</p> + +<p>LA MULTIPLE SPLENDEUR, poèmes. Paris, Mercure de France, 1906.</p> + +<p>TOUTE LA FLANDRE: <i>La Guirlande des Dunes</i>, poèmes. Bruxelles, Deman, +1907.</p> + +<p>LES LETTRES FRANÇAISES EN BELGIQUE. Bruxelles, Lamertin, 1907.</p> + +<p>LES VISAGES DE LA VIE (<i>Les Visages de la Vie, Les douze Mois</i>), poèmes, +nouvelle édition. Paris, Mercure de France, 1908.</p> + +<p>TOUTE LA FLANDRE: <i>Les Héros</i>. Bruxelles, Deman, 1908.</p> + +<p>JAMES ENSOR, étude. Bruxelles, E. van Oest, 1908.</p> + +<p>TOUTE LA FLANDRE: <i>Les Villes à Pignons</i>. Bruxelles, Deman, 1909.</p> + +<p>HELENAS HEIMKEHR. Leipzig, Insel-Verlag, 1909. (Translation by Stefan +Zweig of <i>Hélène de Sparte</i>.)</p> + +<p>DEUX DRAMES: LE CLOÃŽTRE, PHILIPPE II. Paris, Mercure de France, 1909.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p> + +<p>LES RYTHMES SOUVERAINS, poèmes. Paris, Mercure de France, 1910.</p> + +<p>PIERRE-PAUL RUBENS. Brussels, G. van Oest & Cie., 1910.</p> + +<p>LES HEURES DU SOIR. Leipzig, Insel-Verlag, 1911.</p> + +<p>HÉLÈNE DE SPARTE, tragédie en 4 actes. Paris, 'Nouvelle Revue +Française,' 1912.</p> + +<p>TOUTE LA FLANDRE: <i>Les Plaines</i>. Bruxelles, Deman, 1911.</p> + +<p>LES BLÉS MOUVANTS, poèmes. Paris, Crès, 1912.</p> + +<p>LES VILLAGES ILLUSOIRES, avec 15 gravures à l'eau forte par Henry Ramah. +Leipzig, Insel-Verlag, 1913.</p> + +<p>RUBENS. Leipzig, Insel-Verlag, 1913.</p> + +<p>LES BLÉS MOUVANTS, poèmes. Paris, Mercure de France, 1913.</p> + +<p>Å’UVRES D'ÉMILE VERHAEREN (IV., V., VI., VII., VIII., <i>Les Vignes de +ma Muraille</i>). Paris, Mercure de France, 1914.</p> + + + +<p class="caption">TRANSLATIONS INTO ENGLISH</p> + +<p>THE DAWN (<i>Les Aubes</i>), by Émile Verhaeren, translated by Arthur Symons. +London, Duckworth, 1898.</p> + +<p>POEMS BY ÉMILE VERHAEREN, selected and rendered into English by Alma +Strettel. London, John Lane, 1899.</p> + +<p>CONTEMPORARY BELGIAN POETRY, selected and translated by Jethro Bithell. +('Canterbury Poets' series.) London, Walter Scott, 1911. (60 pp. are +translations of Verhaeren's poems.)</p> + + + +<p class="caption">CRITICISMS</p> + + +<p>BOOKS</p> + +<p>Bazalgette, Léon: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. Paris, Sansot, 1907. (One of the +series 'Les Célébrités d'aujourd'hui.')</p> + +<p>Beaunier, André: LA POÉSIE NOUVELLE. Paris, Mercure de France, 1902.</p> + +<p>Bersaucourt, Albert de: CONFÉRENCE SUR ÉMILE VERHAEREN. Paris, Jouve, +1908.</p> + +<p>Bever, Ad. van, et Paul Léautaud: POÈTES D'AUJOURD'HUI, nouvelle +édition, tome 2. Paris, Mercure de France, 1909.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p> + +<p>Boer, Julius de: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. [1907.] (One of the series 'Mannen en +Vrouwen van beteekenis in onze dagen.')</p> + +<p>Bosch, Firmin van den: IMPRESSIONS DE LITTÉRATURE CONTEMPORAINE. +Bruxelles, Vromant et Cie., 1905.</p> + +<p>Buisseret, Georges: L'ÉVOLUTION IDÉOLOGIQUE D'ÉMILE VERHAEREN. Paris, +Mercure de France, 1910. (One of the series 'Les Hommes et les Idées.')</p> + +<p>Casier, Jean: LES 'MOINES' D'ÉMILE VERHAEREN. Gand, Leliaert et Siffer, +1887.</p> + +<p>Crawford, Virginia M.: STUDIES IN FOREIGN LITERATURE. London, Duckworth, +1899.</p> + +<p>Florian-Parmentier: TOUTES LES LYRES. Anthologie Critique ornée de +dessins et de portraits, nouvelle série. Paris, Gastein-Serge, [1911].</p> + +<p>Gauchez, Maurice: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. Bruxelles, éditions du 'Thyrse,' +1908.</p> + +<p>Gilbert, Eugène: FRANCE ET BELGIQUE. Paris, Pion, Nourrit et Cie, 1905.</p> + +<p>Gosse, Edmund: FRENCH PROFILES. London, Heinemann, 1905.</p> + +<p>Gourmont, Remy de: LE LIVRE DES MASQUES. Paris, Mercure de France, 1896.</p> + +<p>Gourmont, Remy de: PROMENADES LITTÉRAIRES. Paris, Mercure de France, +1904.</p> + +<p>Guilbeaux, Henri: É. VERHAEREN. Verviers, Wauthy, 1908.</p> + +<p>Hamel, A.G. van: HET LETTERKUNDIG LEVEN VAN FRANKRIJK. Amsterdam, van +Kampen & Zoon [1907].</p> + +<p>Hauser, Otto: DIE BELGISCHE LYRIK VON 1880-1900. Grossenhain, Baumert +und Ronge, 1902.</p> + +<p>Heumann, Albert: LE MOUVEMENT LITTÉRAIRE BELGE D'EXPRESSION FRANÇAISE +DEPUIS 1880. Paris, Mercure de France, 1913.</p> + +<p>Horrent, Désiré: ÉCRIVAINS BELGES D'AUJOURD'HUI. Bruxelles, Lacomblez, +1904.</p> + +<p>Key, Ellen: SEELEN UND WERKE. Berlin, S. Fischer, 1911.</p> + +<p>Kinon, Victor: PORTRAITS D'AUTEURS. Bruxelles, Dechenne, 1910.</p> + +<p>Le Cardonnel, Georges, et Charles Vellay: LA LITTÉRATURE CONTEMPORAINE, +1905. Paris, Mercure de France, 1906.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p> + +<p>Lemonnier, Camille: LA VIE BELGE. Paris, Fasquelle, 1905.</p> + +<p>Mercereau, Alexandre: LA LITTÉRATURE ET LES IDÉES NOUVELLES. Paris, +Figuière, and London, Stephen Swift, 1912.</p> + +<p>Mockel, Albert: ÉMILE VERHAEREN, avec une note biographique par F. +Vielé-Griffin. Paris, Mercure de France, 1895.</p> + +<p>Nouhuys, W.G. van: VAN OVER DE GRENSEN, STUDIËN EN CRITIEKEN. Baarn, +Hollandia Drukkerij, 1906.</p> + +<p>Oppeln-Bronikowski, F. von: DAS JUNGE FRANKREICH. Berlin, Oesterheld und +Co., 1908.</p> + +<p>Ramaekers, Georges: É. VERHAEREN. Bruxelles, éditions de 'La Lutte,' +1900.</p> + +<p>Rency, Georges: PHYSIONOMIES LITTÉRAIRES. Bruxelles, Dechenne et Cie, +1907.</p> + +<p>Rimestad, Christian: FRANSK POESI I DET NITTENDE AARHUNDREDE. +Kjøbenhavn, Det Schubotheske, 1906.</p> + +<p>Schellenberg, E.A.: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. Leipzig, Xenien-Verlag, 1911.</p> + +<p>Schlaf, Johannes: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. Berlin, Schuster und Loeffler, +[1905].</p> + +<p>Smet, Abbé Jos. de: ÉMILE VERHAEREN, SA VIE ET SES Å’UVRES. Malines, +1909.</p> + +<p>Tellier, Jules: Nos POÈTES. Paris, Despret, 1888.</p> + +<p>Thompson, Vance: FRENCH PORTRAITS. Boston, Badger & Co., 1900.</p> + +<p>Vigié-Lecoq, E.: LA POÉSIE CONTEMPORAINE, 1884-1896. Paris, Mercure de +France, 1897.</p> + +<p>Visan, Tancrède de: L'ATTITUDE DU LYRISME CONTEMPORAIN. Paris, Mercure +de France, 1911.</p> + +<p>Zweig, Stefan: PREFACE TO ÉMILE VERHAERENS AUSGEWÄHLTE GEDICHTE IN +NACHDICHTUNG. Berlin, Schuster und Loeffler, 1903.</p> + + +<p>PERIODICALS</p> + +<p>Brandes, Georg: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. <i>Politiken</i>, Copenhagen, 8th June 1903.</p> + +<p>Brandes, Georg: ÉMILE VERHAEREN ALS DRAMATIKER. <i>Die Schaubühne</i>, +Berlin, 5th April 1906.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span></p> + +<p>Edwards, Osman: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. <i>The Savoy</i>, November 1897.</p> + +<p>Fontainas, André: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. <i>L'Art Moderne</i>, Brussels, 23rd +February 1902.</p> + +<p>Fresnois, André du: LETTRE DE PARIS, HÉLÈNE DE SPARTE. <i>La Vie +Intellectuelle</i>, Brussels, May 1912.</p> + +<p>Gosse, Edmund: M. VERHAEREN'S NEW POEMS (<i>Les Forces Tumultueuses</i>). +<i>Daily Chronicle</i>, 17th February 1902.</p> + +<p>Gosse, Edmund: M. VERHAEREN'S NEW POEMS (<i>Les Blés Mouvants</i>). <i>New +Weekly</i>,18th April 1914.</p> + +<p>Gourmont, Jean de: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. <i>Les Marges</i>, Paris, March 1914.</p> + +<p>Krains, Hubert: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. <i>Société Nouvelle</i>, Brussels, June +1895.</p> + +<p>Mauclair, Camille: TROIS POÈTES. <i>Revue Encyclopédique</i>, Paris, 25th +April 1896.</p> + +<p>Maurras, Charles: LITTÉRATURE. <i>Revue Encyclopédique</i>, Paris, 23rd +January 1897.</p> + +<p>Polak, Emile: ÉMILE VERHAEREN EN RUSSIE. <i>La Vie Intellectuelle,</i> +Brussels, January 1914.</p> + +<p>Reboul, Jacques: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. <i>L'Olivier</i>, Paris, 15th February +1914.</p> + +<p>Régnier, Henri de: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. <i>Revue Blanche</i>, Paris, March 1895.</p> + +<p>Rodrigue, G.M.: HÉLÈNE DE SPARTE. <i>Le Thyrse</i>, Brussels, July 1912.</p> + +<p>Sadler, Michael T.H.: ÉMILE VERHAEREN: AN APPRECIATION. <i>Poetry and +Drama</i>, June 1913.</p> + +<p>Sautreau, Georges: L'Å’UVRE LYRIQUE D'ÉMILE VERHAEREN. <i>Revue +Scandinave</i>, Paris, December 1911—January 1912.</p> + +<p>Speth, William: L'INSPIRATION DE VERHAEREN ET LES COLORISTES FLAMANDS. +<i>La Vie des Lettres</i>, Paris, January 1914.</p> + +<p>Vielé-Griffin, Francis: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. <i>La Plume</i>, Paris,</p> + +<p>25th April 1896. Vielé-Griffin, Francis: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. <i>Mercure de +France</i>, Paris, 15th March 1914.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h3><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX</h3> + +<p> +ACTORS, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>-<a href='#Page_175'>175</a>.<br /> +Admiration, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a>, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a> ff., <a href='#Page_259'>259</a>.<br /> +Aeroplanes, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a>, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>.<br /> +Æsthetics, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_151'>151</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>.<br /> +Africa, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>.<br /> +Agrarianism, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>.<br /> +'À la Gloire du Vent,' <a href='#Page_200'>200</a>.<br /> +Alcohol, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>.<br /> +Alexandrine, the, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a>, 7<a href='#Page_4'>4</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a> ff., <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>.<br /> +<i>Almanack</i>, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a>.<br /> +<i>Also Sprach Zarathustra</i>,<a href='#Page_134'>134</a>.<br /> +America, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>,<br /> + <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>-<a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>.<br /> +Artisans, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a>, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>,<br /> + <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>.<br /> +Asceticism, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>.<br /> +<i>Au Bord de la Route</i>, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>-<a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>.<br /> +'Au Bord du Quai,' <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>.<br /> +Auerbach, Berthold, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>.<br /> +'Aujourd'hui,' <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>.<br /> +'Autour de ma Maison,' <a href='#Page_217'>217</a>, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a>.<br /> +'Aux Moines,' <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>.<br /> +<br /> +BAKST, LÉON, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>.<br /> +Ballads, old German, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>.<br /> +Balzac, Honoré de, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>.<br /> +Banville, Théodore de, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>.<br /> +Baudelaire, Charles, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a>, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>.<br /> +Bayreuth, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>.<br /> +Bazalgette, Léon, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a>, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>.<br /> +Beauty, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>-<a href='#Page_38'>38</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>-<a href='#Page_52'>52</a>, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_96'>96</a> ff., <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>, <a href='#Page_199'>199</a>, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_230'>230</a>, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>.<br /> +—, the new, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_96'>96</a> ff., <a href='#Page_100'>100</a>, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>-<a href='#Page_172'>172</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_222'>222</a>, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>.<br /> +<i>Béguinages</i>, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>.<br /> +Belfries, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>.<br /> +Belgian art, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>-<a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>.<br /> +—life, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>.<br /> +—literature, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>-<a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>-<a href='#Page_38'>38</a>.<br /> +—race, the, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a> ff., <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>-<a href='#Page_24'>24</a>.<br /> +Belgium, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a> ff., <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>.<br /> +Berlin, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>.<br /> +Bersaucourt, Albert de, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>.<br /> +Bornhem, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>.<br /> +Brandes, Georg, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>.<br /> +Breughel, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>.<br /> +Brezina, Otokar, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>.<br /> +Brjussow, Valerius, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>.<br /> +Brownings, the, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a>.<br /> +Bruges, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>.<br /> +Brussels, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>.<br /> +<br /> +CAILLOU-QUI-BIQUE, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>.<br /> +Carducci, Giosuè, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a>.<br /> +Carlyle, Thomas, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>.<br /> +'Celle des Voyages,' <a href='#Page_141'>141</a>.<br /> +'Celui de la Fatigue,' <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>.<br /> +'Celui du Savoir,' <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>.<br /> +Chance, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a>.<br /> +'Charles le Téméraire,' <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>.<br /> +Charles v., <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>.<br /> +Chiaroscuro, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a>.<br /> +Chimay, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>.<br /> +Christ, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a>.<br /> +Christianity, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>.<br /> +Cities, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>-<a href='#Page_14'>14</a>, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>-<a href='#Page_30'>30</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>-<a href='#Page_77'>77</a>, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a> ff., <a href='#Page_94'>94</a> ff.,<br /> +<a href='#Page_101'>101</a> ff., <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>-<a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>-<a href='#Page_118'>118</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_125'>125</a>-<a href='#Page_126'>126</a>, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a>, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>-<a href='#Page_167'>167</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a>, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a>, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>.<br /> +Classicism, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a>, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_160'>160</a>, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a>.<br /> +Claus, Émile, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>.<br /> +Cloisters, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>-<a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_165'>165</a>-<a href='#Page_166'>166</a>.<br /> +Colmar, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>.<br /> +Comédie Française, the, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>.<br /> +Concentration, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>.<br /> +Congo, the, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>.<br /> +Conservatives, the, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>.<br /> +Contemporary feeling, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a> ff., <a href='#Page_81'>81</a>-<a href='#Page_90'>90</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_101'>101</a> ff., <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a>, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a> ff.<br /> +Coppée, François, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>.<br /> +<i>Cosmic Enthusiasm</i>, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a>.<br /> +Cosmic feeling, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>-<a href='#Page_70'>70</a>, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a>-<a href='#Page_75'>75</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_81'>81</a> ff., <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>-<a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a>, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_179'>179</a>-<a href='#Page_185'>185</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a> ff.,<br /> +<a href='#Page_219'>219</a>, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#Page_228'>228</a>, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>.<br /> +—law, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a>, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>-<a href='#Page_203'>203</a>.<br /> +—pain, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>.<br /> +Cosmopolitanism, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>.<br /> +Cosmos, the, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>.<br /> +Coster, Charles de, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_168'>168</a>.<br /> +Country, the, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_101'>101</a> ff., <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>.<br /> +Courtrai, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>.<br /> +Criticism, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>-<a href='#Page_34'>34</a>, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a>.<br /> +Crommelynck, Fernand, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>.<br /> +Crowd, the, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a> ff., <a href='#Page_117'>117</a>, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a>, <a href='#Page_121'>121</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_122'>122</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>-<a href='#Page_127'>127</a>, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a>, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a>, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_134'>134</a>-<a href='#Page_136'>136</a>, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a>, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>.<br /> +<br /> +DAVID, GERHARD, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>.<br /> +Death, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a>.<br /> +Decadence, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a>.<br /> +Decadents, the, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>.<br /> +Declamation (<i>see</i> Recitation).<br /> +Defregger, Franz, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>.<br /> +Dehmel, Richard, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>-<a href='#Page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>.<br /> +Deman, Edmond, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>.<br /> +Democracy, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a>, <a href='#Page_81'>81</a> ff., <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_111'>111</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a>, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a>.<br /> +Demolder, Eugène, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>.<br /> +Déroulède, Paul, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>.<br /> +Deutsches Volkstheater, Vienna, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>.<br /> +Dialogue, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Disease, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a> ff., <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>.<br /> +Dithyramb, the, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>.<br /> +Divinity (<i>see</i> God).<br /> +Dixmude, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>.<br /> +Dostoieffsky, F.M., <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>.<br /> +Drama, the, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a> ff.,<br /> +<a href='#Page_194'>194</a>, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>.<br /> +Dyck, Ernest van, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Ecce Homo!</i> <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>-<a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_218'>218</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Ecstasy, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a>, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_121'>121</a>, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_136'>136</a>, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>-<a href='#Page_167'>167</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_209'>209</a>, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a>, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a>, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a>, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a>, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_223'>223</a>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>-<a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a>, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_235'>235</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>-<a href='#Page_239'>239</a>, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a>, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_251'>251</a>, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a>.<br /> +Edwards, Osman, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>.<br /> +Eekhoud, Georges, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>.<br /> +Egoism (<i>see</i> Selfishness).<br /> +Emerson, Ralph Waldo, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a>.<br /> +Emigrants, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>-<a href='#Page_103'>103</a>, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>.<br /> +Energy, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a> ff., <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a>, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_105'>105</a>, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a>, <a href='#Page_121'>121</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a>, <a href='#Page_199'>199</a>, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a>, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_223'>223</a>.<br /> +Engineering, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a>, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>.<br /> +England, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a>, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>.<br /> +Enthusiasm, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_138'>138</a>, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>-<a href='#Page_164'>164</a>, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>-<a href='#Page_174'>174</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_194'>194</a>, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a>, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a> ff,<br /> +<a href='#Page_220'>220</a>-<a href='#Page_222'>222</a>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>-<a href='#Page_227'>227</a>, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a>, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_250'>250</a>, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a>, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a>.<br /> +Epic, the, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>.<br /> +Eroticism, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>,<a href='#Page_172'>172</a>-<a href='#Page_173'>173</a>, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>.<br /> +Ethics, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_206'>206</a>, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a> ff., <a href='#Page_216'>216</a>.<br /> +Europe, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a> ff.<br /> +European consciousness, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>.<br /> +—feeling, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>.<br /> +—race, the, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>-<a href='#Page_115'>115</a>.<br /> +—the New, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>.<br /> +Evolution, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a> ff., <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a>-<a href='#Page_197'>197</a>, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a>, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a>, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>.<br /> +Excess, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>-<a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_121'>121</a>, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>.<br /> +Exchanges, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a>, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>.<br /> +Exultation, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a>, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>.<br /> +Eycks, van, the, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>.<br /> +<br /> +FACTORIES, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a>, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>.<br /> +Faith, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_67'>67</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_104'>104</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a>, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>-<a href='#Page_210'>210</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_212'>212</a>, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a>.<br /> +Fate, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a>, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a>.<br /> +Faust, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>.<br /> +Fellowship, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a>, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>.<br /> +Fervour (<i>see</i> Enthusiasm).<br /> +Flanders, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_33'>33</a>, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_168'>168</a>, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>.<br /> +Flemings, the, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>.<br /> +Flemish language, the, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a>, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>.<br /> +'Fleur Fatale,' <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>.<br /> +Florence, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>.<br /> +Force, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>.<br /> +Forth Bridge, the, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>.<br /> +France, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a>, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>.<br /> +Future, the, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_204'>204</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a>, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a>, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_246'>246</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>-<a href='#Page_255'>255</a>.<br /> +<br /> +GAIETY THEATRE, Manchester, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>.<br /> +Gauchez, Maurice, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a>.<br /> +Genius, men of, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a>.<br /> +Genre-pictures, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>.<br /> +George, Stefan, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>.<br /> +Germany, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>.<br /> +Ghent, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a>.<br /> +Gide, Andre', <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>.<br /> +Glesener, Edmond, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>.<br /> +God, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_47'>47</a>-<a href='#Page_48'>48</a>, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a>, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_109'>109</a>-<a href='#Page_111'>111</a>, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_199'>199</a>, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>-<a href='#Page_205'>205</a>, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a>-<a href='#Page_215'>215</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_222'>222</a>, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a>.<br /> +Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_71'>71</a>, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>,<a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a>, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_254'>254</a>.<br /> +Goodness, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>, <a href='#Page_251'>251</a>.<br /> +Gothic art, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>.<br /> +Greece, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>.<br /> +Greeks, the, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a>.<br /> +Grünewald, Mathias, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>.<br /> +Gueux, the, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>,<br /> +'Guillaume de Juliers,' <a href='#Page_228'>228</a>.<br /> +Guyau, Jean-Marie, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>.<br /> +<br /> +HAMBURG, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>.<br /> +Handiwork, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a>.<br /> +Harmony, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a>, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a>, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_213'>213</a>, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>.<br /> +Hay fever, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>-<a href='#Page_248'>248</a>.<br /> +Health, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>-<a href='#Page_18'>18</a>, <a href='#Page_67'>67</a>, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_245'>245</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>, <a href='#Page_251'>251</a>.<br /> +<i>Hélène de Sparte</i>,<a href='#Page_162'>162</a>, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>-<a href='#Page_172'>172</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_174'>174</a>-<a href='#Page_175'>175</a>.<br /> +Heymans, Joseph, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>.<br /> +Holland, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>.<br /> +Homer, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>.<br /> +'Hommage,' <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>.<br /> +Horniman, Miss, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>.<br /> +Hugo, Victor, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>-<a href='#Page_11'>11</a>, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a>-<a href='#Page_135'>135</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_138'>138</a>, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>-<a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Humility, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a>, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>.<br /> +Huysmans, Joris Karl, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>.<br /> +<br /> +IDENTITY, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a>, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_223'>223</a>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_228'>228</a>, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>.<br /> +Iliad, the, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>.<br /> +Impressionists, the, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>.<br /> +India, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>.<br /> +Individual, the, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a>.<br /> +Industrialism, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a>, <a href='#Page_81'>81</a> ff., <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>-<a href='#Page_206'>206</a>.<br /> +Inquisition, the, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>.<br /> +'Insatiablement,' <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>.<br /> +Instinct, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>.<br /> +Intemperance (<i>see</i> Excess).<br /> +Intensification, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a>, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a>, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_200'>200</a>-<a href='#Page_202'>202</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_241'>241</a>, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a>, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>.<br /> +Intoxication, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_189'>189</a>, <a href='#Page_199'>199</a>, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a>.<br /> +Italy, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>.<br /> +<br /> +JENSEN, JOHANNES V., <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>.<br /> +Jesuits, the, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>-<a href='#Page_26'>26</a>.<br /> +Jesus, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>.<br /> +Jordaens, Jakob, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>.<br /> +Joy, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a>, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_217'>217</a>, <a href='#Page_228'>228</a>, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a>-<a href='#Page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>.<br /> +<br /> +KAHN, GUSTAVE, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>.<br /> +Kainz, Josef, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>.<br /> +Kermesses, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>.<br /> +Key, Ellen, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>.<br /> +Khnopff, Fernand, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>.<br /> +Klinger, Max, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>.<br /> +Knowledge, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a>, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a>-<a href='#Page_222'>222</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a>-<a href='#Page_234'>234</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>.<br /> +Künstlertheater, Munich, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>.<br /> +<br /> +'LA BARQUE,' <a href='#Page_58'>58</a>.<br /> +'Là -has,' <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>.<br /> +Labour Party, Belgian, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>.<br /> +'La Bourse,' <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>.<br /> +'La Conquête' (<i>La Multiple Splendeur</i>),<br /> +<a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_199'>199</a>.<br /> +'La Conquête' (<i>Les Forces Tumultueuses</i>),<br /> +<a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a>.<br /> +'L'Action,' <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a>.<br /> +'La Ferveur,' <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a>, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a>-<a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a>.<br /> +'La Folie,' <a href='#Page_212'>212</a>.<br /> +'La Forêt,' <a href='#Page_77'>77</a>.<br /> +Laforgue, Jules, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>.<br /> +'La Foule,' <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a>, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_152'>152</a>, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a>.<br /> +<i>La Guirlande des Dunes</i>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>.<br /> +'La Joie,' <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>.<br /> +'La Louange du Corps humain,' <a href='#Page_227'>227</a>.<br /> +Lamartine, A.M.L. de, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>.<br /> +'L'Âme de la Ville,' <a href='#Page_95'>95</a>, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>.<br /> +'La Mort,' <a href='#Page_211'>211</a>.<br /> +'La Morte,' <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>.<br /> +'L'Amour,' <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>.<br /> +<i>La Multiple Splendeur</i>, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_122'>122</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_199'>199</a>, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_204'>204</a>, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a>, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_219'>219</a>, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a>, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a>, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a>-<a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_227'>227</a>, <a href='#Page_228'>228</a>, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a>, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a>.<br /> +'La Plaine,' <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>.<br /> +'La Pluie,' <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>.<br /> +'La Prière,' <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>.<br /> +'La Recherche,' <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a>.<br /> +'L'Art,' <a href='#Page_11'>11</a>.<br /> +'La Science,' <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a>.<br /> +Latin races, the, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>.<br /> +'L'Attente,' <a href='#Page_197'>197</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a>.<br /> +'L'Aventurier,' <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>.<br /> +'La Vie,' <a href='#Page_215'>215</a>, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a>, <a href='#Page_228'>228</a>.<br /> +'La Ville,' <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>.<br /> +'L'Eau,' <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>-<a href='#Page_202'>202</a>.<br /> +'Le Bazar,' <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>.<br /> +'Le Capitaine,' <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>.<br /> +Le Cardonnel, Georges, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a>-<a href='#Page_216'>216</a>.<br /> +<i>Le Cloître</i>, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>-<a href='#Page_166'>166</a>, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>.<br /> +'Le Départ,' <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>.<br /> +'Le Forgeron,' <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>.<br /> +'Le Gel,' <a href='#Page_58'>58</a>.<br /> +Lemonnier, Camille, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>-<a href='#Page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>.<br /> +'Le Mont,' <a href='#Page_81'>81</a>.<br /> +'L'En-Avant,' <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a>.<br /> +'Le Paradis,' <a href='#Page_213'>213</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>.<br /> +'Le Passeur d'Eau,' <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>.<br /> +'Le Port,' <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>.<br /> +Lerberghe, Charles van, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>.<br /> +'Le Roc,' <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>.<br /> +'L'Erreur,' <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>.<br /> +<i>Les Apparus dans mes Chemins</i>, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>.<br /> +<i>Les Aubes</i>, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>-<a href='#Page_167'>167</a>.<br /> +<i>Les Blés Mouvants</i>, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>.<br /> +'Les Cultes,' <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>.<br /> +<i>Les Débâcles</i>, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>.<br /> +<i>Les Campagnes Hallucinées</i>, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_101'>101</a> ff., <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a>.<br /> +<i>Les Flamandes</i>, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a> ff., <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_197'>197</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>.<br /> +<i>Les Flambeaux Noirs</i>, <a href='#Page_67'>67</a>, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>.<br /> +<i>Les Forces Tumultueuses</i>, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a>, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_161'>161</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_206'>206</a>, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a>, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_222'>222</a>, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>.<br /> +<i>Les Héros</i>, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_228'>228</a>.<br /> +<i>Les Heures Claires</i>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>.<br /> +<i>Les Heures d'Après-midi</i>, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_239'>239</a>, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a>, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a>, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a>.<br /> +<i>Les Heures du Soir</i>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a>.<br /> +'Les Heures où l'on crée,' <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>.<br /> +'Les Mages,' <a href='#Page_233'>233</a>.<br /> +<i>Les Moines</i>, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a> ff., <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a>, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_162'>162</a>, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a>, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>.<br /> +'Les Nombres,' <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>.<br /> +'Le Sonneur,' <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>.<br /> +'Les Pêcheurs,' <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>.<br /> +'Les Penseurs,' <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a>.<br /> +<i>Les Petites Légendes</i>, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a>.<br /> +'Les Promeneuses,' <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>.<br /> +'Les Rêves,' <a href='#Page_215'>215</a>, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a>.<br /> +<i>Les Rythmes Souverains</i>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_213'>213</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>.<br /> +'Les Saintes,' <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>.<br /> +<i>Les Soirs</i>,<a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>.<br /> +'Les Spectacles,' <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>.<br /> +<i>Les Tendresses Premières</i>, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>.<br /> +<i>Les Vignes de ma Muraille</i>, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a>.<br /> +'Les Vieux Maîtres,' <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>.<br /> +<i>Les Villages Illusoires</i>, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>-<a href='#Page_71'>71</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>.<br /> +'Les Villes,' <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>.<br /> +<i>Les Villes Tentaculaires</i>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a> ff.,<br /> +<a href='#Page_103'>103</a>, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_166'>166</a>, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a>, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>.<br /> +<i>Les Visages de la Vie</i>, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a>, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a>, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a>, <a href='#Page_199'>199</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>-<a href='#Page_202'>202</a>, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_211'>211</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a>, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a>.<br /> +'L'Étal,' <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>.<br /> +'Le Tribun,' <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>.<br /> +'Le Verbe,' <a href='#Page_117'>117</a>, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>.<br /> +'L'Heure Mauvaise,' <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>.<br /> +'L'Impossible,' <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a>, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a>.<br /> +Locomotives, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>.<br /> +London, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a>, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>.<br /> +Louvain, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>.<br /> +Love, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>-<a href='#Page_173'>173</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_197'>197</a>, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a>, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a>-<a href='#Page_224'>224</a>, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a>, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a> ff.<br /> +<br /> +MACHINERY, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a>, <a href='#Page_81'>81</a>-<a href='#Page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a> ff.,<br /> +<a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a>.<br /> +Madness, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a> ff., <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>.<br /> +Maeterlinck, Maurice, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>.<br /> +<i>Maison du Peuple, La</i>, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>.<br /> +Mallarmé, Stéphane, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>.<br /> +Manchester, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>.<br /> +'Ma Race,' <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>.<br /> +Marriage, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a> ff., <a href='#Page_243'>243</a>.<br /> +Martyrs, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>.<br /> +'Méditation,' <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>.<br /> +Mendès, Catulle, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>.<br /> +Merrill, Stuart, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>.<br /> +Messel, Alfred, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>.<br /> +Metaphors, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>.<br /> +Metaphysics, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_199'>199</a>, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_215'>215</a>, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a>, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>.<br /> +Meunier, Constantin, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>.<br /> +Minne, Georges, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>.<br /> +Mockel, Albert, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a>, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>.<br /> +Monasteries (<i>see</i> Cloisters).<br /> +Monastery of Bornhem, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>.<br /> +—of Forges, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>.<br /> +Monet, Claude, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>.<br /> +Money, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a>, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>-<a href='#Page_99'>99</a>, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a> <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>.<br /> +Monistic philosophy, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>.<br /> +Monks, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a> ff., <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>.<br /> +Mont, Pol de, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>.<br /> +Morality, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a>, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a>, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a>, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a>.<br /> +Moréas, Jean, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>.<br /> +Motion, <a href='#Page_121'>121</a>, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a>, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a>.<br /> +Motor-cars, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>.<br /> +'Mourir,' <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>.<br /> +Multitude (<i>see</i> Crowd).<br /> +Munich, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>.<br /> +Music halls, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>.<br /> +Mysticism, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>.<br /> +Mystics, the, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>.<br /> +Mythology, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>.<br /> +<br /> +NATURALISM, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>-<a href='#Page_38'>38</a>, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>.<br /> +Nature, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_99'>99</a>, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_195'>195</a>, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a>-<a href='#Page_205'>205</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a>, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a>, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_246'>246</a>, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>.<br /> +Necessary, the, is the beautiful,<br /> +<a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a>.<br /> +Neologisms, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>.<br /> +Neurasthenia, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a> ff., <a href='#Page_118'>118</a>.<br /> +New age, the, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a> ff., <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a>-<a href='#Page_207'>207</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a>.<br /> +—European, the, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>.<br /> +New York, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>.<br /> +Nietzsche, Friedrich, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_85'>85</a>-<a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_218'>218</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_251'>251</a>.<br /> +<br /> +OMBIAUX, MAURICE DES, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>.<br /> +OnomatopÅ“ia, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>.<br /> +Oppidomagnum, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>-<a href='#Page_167'>167</a>,<br /> +Optimism, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>.<br /> +Organisation, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a>-<a href='#Page_119'>119</a>.<br /> +Orgies, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>.<br /> +Oxford, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>.<br /> +<br /> +PAN, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>.<br /> +Pan-American, the, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>.<br /> +Pan-European, the, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>.<br /> +Pantheism, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a>, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a>.<br /> +Paradise, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a>-<a href='#Page_213'>213</a>.<br /> +Paris, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>-<a href='#Page_249'>249</a>.<br /> +Parnassian poetry, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a>, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a>.<br /> +Paroxysm, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>.<br /> +<i>Parsival</i>,<a href='#Page_37'>37</a>.<br /> +Passion, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a>, <a href='#Page_67'>67</a>, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a>, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a>, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a>, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>-<a href='#Page_123'>123</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_128'>128</a>-<a href='#Page_131'>131</a>, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>-<a href='#Page_165'>165</a>, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>-<a href='#Page_170'>170</a>, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a>, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a>, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_217'>217</a>, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a>-<a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a>, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_238'>238</a>, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>, <a href='#Page_251'>251</a>, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a>.<br /> +Past, the, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_50'>50</a>-<a href='#Page_53'>53</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a> ff., <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_104'>104</a>, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_207'>207</a>, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>.<br /> +Peasants, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>-<a href='#Page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>-<a href='#Page_103'>103</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_146'>146</a>-<a href='#Page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#Page_251'>251</a>.<br /> +Pessimism, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>.<br /> +Petöfi, Alexander, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>.<br /> +Philip II., <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>,<a href='#Page_167'>167</a>-<a href='#Page_169'>169</a>.<br /> +<i>Philippe II.</i>, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>,<a href='#Page_162'>162</a>, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>-<a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>.<br /> +Philosophy, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>.<br /> +Picard, Edmond, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>.<br /> +Poetry, the new, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_83'>83</a> ff., <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>-<a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_126'>126</a>, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_205'>205</a>-<a href='#Page_206'>206</a>, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a>, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a>.<br /> +Poets, the, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>-<a href='#Page_51'>51</a>, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>-<a href='#Page_209'>209</a>.<br /> +—of the old school, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_51'>51</a>-<a href='#Page_52'>52</a>, <a href='#Page_81'>81</a> ff., <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>-<a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_129'>129</a>-<a href='#Page_131'>131</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a>, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_206'>206</a>, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>.<br /> +Pol de Mont, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>.<br /> +Poverty, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>-<a href='#Page_103'>103</a>.<br /> +Prague, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>.<br /> +Present, the, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a> ff., <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_105'>105</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>-<a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>.<br /> +Pride, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a>, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a>, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_230'>230</a>, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>.<br /> +Progress, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>-<a href='#Page_5'>5</a>, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>.<br /> +Prostitutes, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>.<br /> +Protestantism, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>.<br /> +Pseudoanæsthesia, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>.<br /> +Psychology, <a href='#Page_47'>47</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>.<br /> +Puritanism, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>.<br /> +<br /> +RABELAIS, FRANÇOIS, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>.<br /> +Realism, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>-<a href='#Page_38'>38</a>, <a href='#Page_199'>199</a>.<br /> +Reality, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>-<a href='#Page_38'>38</a>, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>-<a href='#Page_52'>52</a>, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_81'>81</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>-<a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_153'>153</a>, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_192'>192</a>, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a>, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a>, <a href='#Page_199'>199</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_206'>206</a>, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a>.<br /> +Recitation, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a>-<a href='#Page_123'>123</a>, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a> ff., <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>.<br /> +Reinhardt, Max, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>.<br /> +Religion, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_47'>47</a>, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_67'>67</a>, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>-<a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_211'>211</a>, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>.<br /> +—, a new, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>.<br /> +Rembrandt, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a>, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>.<br /> +<i>Rembrandt</i>, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a>.<br /> +Renan, Ernest, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>.<br /> +Renunciation, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>.<br /> +Responsibility, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a> ff.<br /> +Revolt, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a>, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_122'>122</a>, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>-<a href='#Page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>.<br /> +Rhapsodists, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a> ff.<br /> +Rhetoricians, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a>.<br /> +Rhyme, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>.<br /> +Rhythm, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a>, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a>, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_105'>105</a>, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a> ff., <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_146'>146</a> ff., <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_193'>193</a>, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#Page_251'>251</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>.<br /> +—of life, the, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a>, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a>, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a> ff.<br /> +Rilke, Rainer Maria, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a>, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>.<br /> +<i>Ring, The</i>, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>.<br /> +Rodenbach, Georges, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>.<br /> +Rodin, Auguste, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>.<br /> +Rolland, Romain, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>,<br /> +Romains, Jules, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>-<a href='#Page_257'>257</a>.<br /> +Roman Catholicism, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_67'>67</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>-<a href='#Page_166'>166</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_168'>168</a>-<a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>.<br /> +Romanticism, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>.<br /> +Romanticists, the, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>.<br /> +Rome, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>.<br /> +Rops, Félicien, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>.<br /> +Rubens, Peter Paul, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_43'>43</a>, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a>.<br /> +Rubinstein, Ida, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>.<br /> +Ruskin, John, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>.<br /> +Russia, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>.<br /> +Russians, the, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>.<br /> +Rysselberghe, Théo van, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>.<br /> +<br /> +ST. AMAND, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>-<br /> +Saint-Cloud, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>.<br /> +'Saint Georges,' <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>.<br /> +Sainte-Barbe, College of, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>-<a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a>, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a>.<br /> +St. Petersburg, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>.<br /> +Saints, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a>.<br /> +'S'amoindrir,' <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>.<br /> +Scandinavia, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>.<br /> +Scheldt, the, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>.<br /> +Schiller, Friedrich, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a>,<a href='#Page_158'>158</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>.<br /> +Schlaf, Johannes, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>.<br /> +Scholars, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a>.<br /> +Science, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a>, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a>, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>-<a href='#Page_209'>209</a>, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a>.<br /> +Sea, the, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a>, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_202'>202</a>, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>.<br /> +Selfishness, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a>.<br /> +Sensations, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>-<a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>,<a href='#Page_104'>104</a>, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_130'>130</a>, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a>, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a>, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_202'>202</a>, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>.<br /> +Sensuality, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>-<a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>.<br /> +Sex, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a> ff.<br /> +Shakespeare, William, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>.<br /> +Signac, Paul, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>.<br /> +Silence, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>-<a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a>, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a>, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a>, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a>, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a><br /> +'Si Morne,' <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>.<br /> +Social feeling, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>.<br /> +—problem, the, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a> ff., <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>.<br /> +Socialism, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a>.<br /> +Society, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>.<br /> +Solitude, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_81'>81</a>, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>.<br /> +Sonnets, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>.<br /> +Soul, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>.<br /> +'Sous les Prétoriens,' <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>.<br /> +Spain, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>.<br /> +Spaniards, the, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>.<br /> +Stappen, van der, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>.<br /> +Stevens, Alfred, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>.<br /> +Strauss, David, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>.<br /> +Suicide, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>.<br /> +Superman, the, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>.<br /> +Symbolism, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a> ff.<br /> +Symbolists, the, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a> ff., <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>.<br /> +Symbols, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>,<a href='#Page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, <a href='#Page_47'>47</a>, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_71'>71</a>, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_165'>165</a>, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_218'>218</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>.<br /> +Swinburne, Algernon Charles, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>.<br /> +<br /> +TAMERLAINE, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>.<br /> +<i>Tannhäuser</i>,<a href='#Page_37'>37</a>.<br /> +Teutonic elements, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a>, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>.<br /> +Thames, the, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>.<br /> +<i>Thyl Ulenspiegel</i>, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>.<br /> +Toledo, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>.<br /> +Tolstoy, Leo, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>.<br /> +Torpedo-boats, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>.<br /> +<i>Toute la Flandre</i>, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_168'>168</a>, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>.<br /> +Town (<i>see</i> City).<br /> +Tradition, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a>.<br /> +Travel, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>-<a href='#Page_92'>92</a>, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>.<br /> +'Truandailles,' <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>.<br /> +Truth, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>-<a href='#Page_38'>38</a>.<br /> +Turner, J.M.W., <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>.<br /> +<br /> +UNITY, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_199'>199</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_202'>202</a>, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a>, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a> ff., <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a>.<br /> +Université Libre, Brussels, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>.<br /> +Unknown, the, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_212'>212</a>, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a>, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a>.<br /> +'Un Matin,' <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>.<br /> +'Un Soir' (<i>Au Bord de la Route</i>), <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>.<br /> +'Un Soir' (<i>Les Forces Tumultueuses</i>), <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>.<br /> +Utopia, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_199'>199</a>.<br /> +<br /> +VANDERVELDE, EMIL, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>.<br /> +Vellay, Charles, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a>-<a href='#Page_216'>216</a>.<br /> +Venice, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Verhaeren, Émile, born at St. Amand on the<br /> +Scheldt, 1855, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>; his boyhood, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>-<a href='#Page_28'>28</a>; educated at<br /> +the College of Sainte-Barbe in Ghent, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>-<a href='#Page_26'>26</a>;<br /> +studies jurisprudence at Louvain, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>; called to the<br /> +bar in Brussels, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>; his first verses, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a><br /> +ff.; publication of <i>Les Flamandes,</i> <a href='#Page_33'>33</a> ff.;<br /> +resides for three weeks in the monastery of<br /> +Forges, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>; publication of <i>Les Moines</i>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a> ff.;<br /> +his health breaks down, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a> ff., <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>; his illness<br /> +is described in <i>Les Soirs, Les Débâcles, Les<br /> +Flambeaux Noirs,</i> and <i>Au Bord de la Route</i>, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a><br /> +ff.; his travels, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>-<a href='#Page_92'>92</a>, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>; he is obsessed<br /> +by the atmosphere of London, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>; his recovery is<br /> +symbolised in some of the poems of <i>Les Villages<br /> +Illusoires</i>, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>-<a href='#Page_71'>71</a>; his marriage, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a> ff., <a href='#Page_243'>243</a>;<br /> +his connection with the Labour Party and<br /> +Socialism, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>-<a href='#Page_94'>94</a>; the Flemish element in his<br /> +style, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a>-<a href='#Page_155'>155</a>; his technique, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a> ff.; stage<br /> +performances of his dramas, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>-<a href='#Page_175'>175</a>; how he<br /> +recites his poetry, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a>-<a href='#Page_123'>123</a>; he resides at<br /> +Caillou-qui-bique and Saint-Cloud, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a>, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_248'>248</a>-<a href='#Page_249'>249</a>; his personal appearance, <a href='#Page_67'>67</a>, <a href='#Page_251'>251</a>; his<br /> +personality, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a> ff.<br /> +<br /> +Verlaine, Paul, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a>.<br /> +'Vers,' <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>.<br /> +'Vers la Mer,' <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>.<br /> +'Vers le Cloître,' <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>.<br /> +'Vers le Futur,' <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>.<br /> +<i>Vers libre</i>, the, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a>, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a> ff., <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>.<br /> +<i>Vers ternaire, le</i>, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>.<br /> +Vielé-Griffin, Francis, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>.<br /> +Vienna, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>.<br /> +Vitality, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_33'>33</a>, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a>, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a>-<a href='#Page_202'>202</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_206'>206</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>.<br /> +<br /> +WAGNER, RICHARD, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>.<br /> +Walloons, the, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>.<br /> +Weyden, Roger van der, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>.<br /> +Whistler, J. M'Neill, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>.<br /> +Whitman, Walt, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>-<a href='#Page_109'>109</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a>, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a>-<a href='#Page_191'>191</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_227'>227</a> <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>.<br /> +Will, the, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>-<a href='#Page_62'>62</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>-<a href='#Page_74'>74</a>, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>-<a href='#Page_195'>195</a>, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a>, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a>,<br /> +<a href='#Page_223'>223</a>.<br /> +<i>Wisdom and Destiny</i>, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a>.<br /> +Woman, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>-<a href='#Page_173'>173</a>, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a> ff.<br /> +Women, Belgian, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>.<br /> +<br /> +YPRES, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>.<br /> +<br /> +ZOLA, ÉMILE, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>.<br /> +</p> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Émile Verhaeren, by Stefan Zweig + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ÉMILE VERHAEREN *** + +***** This file should be named 35387-h.htm or 35387-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/3/8/35387/ + +Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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