Music.
Now let us join with Song. In merry mirth
Draw to a fitting close our Interlude.
Song.
Sorrow reigned her little day
Love has driven her far away
Brought the sunshine back to Court
Thus we end in merry sport.
[Exeunt All.]
EPILOGUE
[Enter Jester.]
The Tale is over and their parts are done,
And Love again has proved the strongest one.
I wonder has it pleased you now to see
The oldest tale told thus in phantasy.
And let your answer be whate'er it may,
Whether your thumbs be up or down to-day
Will hurt not me. I did not write the play.
[THE CURTAIN.]
THE INTRUDER
By
MAURICE MAETERLINCK
Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck, to give him his full baptismal name, was born in Ghent on August 29, 1862. He was sent to the Jesuit College de Sainte-Barbe, the institution which another great Belgian, Emile Verhaeren, also attended. In 1885, Maeterlinck entered the University of Ghent to study law, but his practice of this profession was confined to a scant year or two. Maeterlinck's chief interest in his college years seems to have been the modern movement in Belgian literature. But the frequency of his visits to Paris increased in the years between 1886 and 1896, and finally in the latter year he settled there.
The following word picture supplements the photographs of Maeterlinck that are so frequently reproduced in our magazines and newspapers: "Maeterlinck is easily described: a man of about five feet nine in height, inclined to be stout; silver hair lends distinction to the large round head and boyish fresh complexion; blue-gray eyes, now thoughtful, now merry, and an unaffected off-hand manner. The features are not cut, left rather 'in the rough,' as sculptors say, even the heavy jaw and chin are drowned in fat; the forehead bulges and the eyes lose color in the light and seem hard; still, an interesting and attractive personality."