which a precedent could not be discovered, no government established of which an exact model did not present itself,— the people of the United States might at this moment have been numbered among the melancholy victims of misguided councils; must at best have been laboring under the weight of some of those forms which have crushed the liberties of the rest of mankind. Happily for America,-happily, we trust, for the whole. human race, they pursued a new and more noble course. They accomplished a revolution which has no parallel in the annals of human society. They reared the fabrics of governments which have no model on the face of the globe. They formed the design of a great confederacy, which it is incumbent on their successors to improve and perpetuate. If their works betray imperfections, we wonder at the fewness of them. If they erred most in the structure of the union, this was the work most difficult to be executed; this is the work which has been new modeled by the act of your convention, and it is that act on which you are now to deliberate and to decide.

AR

INTERFERENCE TO QUELL DOMESTIC INSURRECTION
From The Federalist>

T FIRST view, it might seem not to square with the republican theory to suppose either that a majority have not the right, or that a minority will have the force, to subvert a government; and consequently, that the federal interposition can never be required but when it would be improper. But theoretic reasoning, in this as in most other cases, must be qualified by the lessons of practice. Why may not illicit combinations, for purposes of violence, be formed as well by a majority of a State, especially a small State, as by a majority of a county or a district of the same State; and if the authority of the State ought in the latter case to protect the local magistracy, ought not the Federal authority, in the former, to support the State authority? Besides, there are certain parts of the State constitutions which are so interwoven with the federal Constitution, that a violent blow cannot be given to the one without communicating the wound to the other. Insurrections in a State will rarely induce a federal interposition, unless the number concerned in them bear some proportion to the friends of government. It will be

much better that the violence in such cases should be repressed by the superintending power, than that the majority should be left to maintain their cause by a bloody and obstinate contest. The existence of a right to interpose will generally prevent the necessity of exerting it.

Is it true that force and right are necessarily on the same side in republican governments? May not the minor party possess such a superiority of pecuniary resources, of military talents and experience, or of secret succors from foreign powers, as will render it superior also in an appeal to the sword? May not a more compact and advantageous position turn the scale on the same. side, against a superior number so situated as to be less capable of a prompt and collected exertion of its strength? Nothing can be more chimerical than to imagine that in a trial of actual force, victory may be calculated by the rules which prevail in a census of the inhabitants, or which determine the event of an election! May it not happen, in fine, that the minority of citizens may become a majority of persons, by the accession of alien residents, of a casual concourse of adventurers, or of those whom the constitution of the State has not admitted to the rights of suffrage? I take no notice of an unhappy species of population abounding in some of the States, who, during the calm of regular government, are sunk below the level of men; but who, in the tempestuous scenes of civil violence, may emerge into the human character, and give a superiority of strength to any party with which they may associate themselves.

In cases where it may be doubtful on which side justice lies, what better umpires could be desired by two violent factions, flying to arms and tearing a State to pieces, than the representatives of confederate States not heated by the local flame? To the impartiality of judges they would unite the affection of friends. Happy would it be if such a remedy for its infirmities could be enjoyed by all free governments; if a project equally effectual could be established for the universal peace of mankind!

Should it be asked, what is to be the redress for an insurrection pervading all the States, and comprising a superiority of the entire force, though not a constitutional right, the answer must be that such a case, as it would be without the compass of human remedies, so it is fortunately not within the compass of human probability; and that it is a sufficient recommendation of the federal Constitution, that it diminishes the risk of a calamity for which no possible constitution can provide a cure.

MAURICE MAETERLINCK

(1864-)

BY WILLIAM SHARP

NE of the most remarkable, one of the most widely known of the younger writers of the day, Maurice Maeterlinck, is still little more than a name to the majority of people, even among those who nominally follow closely every new expression of the contemporary spirit. Some, following the example of his ultraenthusiastic French pioneer, M. Octave Mirbeau, have made for him the high claim of genius; others have gone

to the opposite extreme, and denied his possession of any qualities save a morbid fantasy in drama, or of a mystical intensity in spiritual philosophy.

That Maurice Maeterlinck is in every sense of the word a most notable personality in contemporary literature is not to be denied; whether we like or dislike his peculiar methods in the dramatic presentation of his vision of life, or understand or sympathize with his uncompromising position as a mystic of the kindred of Sweden

borg, Jakob Boehme, or that Ruysbroeck of MAURICE MAETERLINCK whom he has been the modern interpreter.

It is undeniable, now, that the great vogue prophesied for the Maeterlinckian drama has not been fulfilled. Possibly the day may come when the Drame Intime may have a public following to justify the hopes of those who believe in it; but that time has not come yet. Meanwhile, we have to be content with dramas of the mind enacted against mental tapestries, so to say, or with shifting backgrounds among the dream vistas and perspectives of the mind. For although several of M. Maeterlinck's poetic plays have been set upon the stage, rather as puppet plays than in the sense commonly meant,their success has been one of curiosity rather than of conviction. Even the most impressive has seemed much less so when subjected to the conditions of stage representation; and it is almost impossible to understand how certain of them could avoid exciting that sense

of incongruity which is fatal to a keen impression of verisimilitude. Even compositions so decorative as 'The Seven Princesses,' or that strange drama 'The Blind,' are infinitely more impressive when read than when seen; and this because they are, like all else of Maeterlinck's, merely the embodiment in words, and in a pseudo-dramatic formula, of spiritual allegories or dreams. There were many who thought that his short drama 'The Intruder' more than stood the test of stage representation. I have seen 'L'Intruse' twice, and given with all the skill and interpretative sympathy possible, both in Paris and London; and yet I have not for a moment found in its stage representation anything to approach the convincing and intimate appeal, so simple and yet so subtle and weird, afforded in the perusal of the original.

We have, however, no longer to consider Maurice Maeterlinck merely as a dramatist, or perhaps I should say as a writer in dramatic form. He began as a poet, and as a writer of a very strange piece of fiction; and now, and for some time past, his work has been that of a spiritual interpreter, of an essayist, and of a mystic.

Mooris Mäterlinck-for it was not till he was of age that he adopted the Gallicized "Maurice Maeterlinck"-was born in Flanders, and is himself racially as well as mentally and spiritually a Fleming of the Flemings. He has all the physical endurance, the rough bodily type, of his countrymen; but he has also their quiet intensity of feeling, their sense of dream and mystery. His earliest influences in literature were French and English: the French of writers such as Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, the English of writers such as Shakespeare and the Elizabethan dramatists. When, as little more than a youth, he went to Paris, it was mainly in the hope of discipleship to the great Villiers. It was while in Paris that he wrote one of his earliest and to this day one of his most remarkable productions, the short story entitled 'The Massacre of the Innocents,' a study so remarkable that it at once attracted the attention of the few who closely follow every new manifestation of literary talent. In this strange tale, Maeterlinck has attempted to depict the Biblical story after the manner of those Dutch and Flemish painters who represented with unflinching contemporary realism all their scenes based upon Scriptural episodes that is to say, who represented every scene, however Oriental or remote, in accordance with Dutch or Flemish customs, habits, dress, etc. This short story, however, appeared in an obscure and long since defunct French periodical; and little notice was taken of it till some years later, when the present writer drew attention to it as the first production of its by that time distinguished author. Since then it has been admirably translated, and has appeared in an American edition.

But the first actual book which Maurice Maeterlinck published was a volume of poems entitled 'Serres Chaudes,' - a title which we might idiomatically render as 'Hot-house Blooms.' These poems are interesting, and we can clearly discern in them the same mental outlook and habit of mind the author exhibits in his maturer prose writings; but they have not in any marked degree the lyric quality, as a poet's work must have; and for all that there are poetical and imaginative lines and verses, they suggest rather the work of a rare and imaginative mind controlling itself to expression in this manner, than of one who yields to it out of imperious and impulsive need. In some respects we find a curious return to this first book in Maurice Maeterlinck's latest; - for although 'Le Trésor des Humbles' is a volume of mystical essays, and deals with other themes than those chiefly broached in 'Serres Chaudes,' there is a remarkable spiritual affinity between them. It is impossible to understand this strange and powerful writer if one does not approach him on his mystical side. It is not necessary for the reader to follow him in his brooding hours with Ruysbroeck, or even to listen to what he has to say on the subject of Novalis and other German mystics; but his subtle analytical study of Emerson, and above all, those spiritual essays of his (entitled in English The Treasure of the Humble'), should be carefully studied. This last-named book has shared the fate of all works of the kind; that is to say, it has been ignored by the great majority of the reading public, it has been sneered at by an ever fretful and supercilious band of critics, and has been received with deep gladness and gratitude by the few who welcome with joy any true glad tidings of the spiritual life. Among these essays, two should in particular be read: those entitled 'The Deeper Life' and 'The Inner Beauty.' The last-named, indeed, is really a quintessential essay. Just as a certain monotony of detail characterizes Maeterlinck's dramas, so a repetitive diffuseness mars these prose essays of his. Beautiful thoughts and phrases are to be found throughout the whole of 'The Treasure of the Humble'; but after all, the essay entitled 'The Inner Beauty' comprises his whole spiritual philosophy. When we turn to Maurice Maeterlinck the dramatist, we find him the supreme voice in modern Belgian literature. As a poet he is far surpassed by Émile Verhaeren-who is indeed one of the finest poets now living in any country; and as a writer of prose he has many rivals, and some who have a distinction, grace, and power altogether beyond what he has himself displayed. But as a dramatist—that is, an imaginative artist working in dramatic form- he holds a unique and altogether remarkable place.

In one of his early poems he exclaims: "Mon âme!-Oh, mon âme vraiment trop à l'abri!"— (My soul!-Oh, truly my soul dwells