SHIPWRECK.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1467, 15 June 1912, Page 11

SHIPWRECK.

MAETERLINCK THE MYSTIC.

Attention has been drawn in the oablo3 lo a curious side of the terrible disaster to the White Star liner Titanic, in the fact that a number of those ivho had intended to travel in tho.ill-fated ship wore either prevented .at the last minute from doing so, or for somVreason failed to take the trip, writes L.C., in the "Australasian." ■ ' 'I*he ordinary mnn, if he thinks of Ihe matter nt nil, only considers it a iurtui,at« circumstanco that these inta.i.'ling passengers were detained and were 11 1 us unable to take what was destined to be bo fatal a trip. The incident means nothing rnoro to him than that. Maurice Maeterlinck, tho Belgian mystic and playwright, whose "Blue Bird" is now delighting Sydney audiences, prer Bents another and a. very peculiar theory/

Waiting for, the Predestined One. He is convinced that the air we breathe, the time we traverse, the space through wnioh.wo move, aro all peopled by "lurking circumstances," which piok us out from amongst the crowd. He pictures "redoubtable, multitudinous chance" for .ever threading its watchful way round and about our most deliberate actions, nnd says that the least study of the habits of the strange "daughters of hazard" Ehould quickly convinco us that they by no means act in irresponsible fashion, for "with inexplicable certainty do they move to the passer-by whom (.hey have been sent to confront, and lightly touch his shoulder."

This doctrine of blind chance capriciously selecting its victims is not one that appeals to the sturdy British imagination. It seems to suggest a. supine attitude of nerveless resignation to tho inevitable blows of an unseen foe, and is altogether opposed to all our best ideals of presenting a. resolute front to the buffetings of tho world. But Maeterlinck, though profoundly convinced of the truth of his theory as to tho mystic workings of chance inlour midst, never loses his faith in the omnipotence of the human ■will. He lipids that "unless chance asBume tho irresistible form of cruel disease or death, the workings of will and thought are sufficient (q neutralise all its' efforts, and to preserve what is best and piost essential in human happiness." With this assurance that our most cherished belief is in no dnnger of beinjr ruthlessly handled, let us see how he unfold 3 liia mystic doctrine. Tho course pursued by fortunate or contrary chances he depicts thus. Ho imagines any happy or untoward event that has sprun" from tho profound recesses of great ami eternal laws, rising before us and completely blocking the way. It exists there, inBvi table, but to us whose senses only permit us to know things through the succession of time, it is as though it were not. It _is we who approach the event, Mid having come within the sphere of its influence, will either fly from it or faco it.

Fate at Work. .from the abstract Maeterlinck comes polclly to the concrete, and asks ua to <m case oJ a shipwreck, i «.«? must perish has not yet left the port; the rock or shoal that shall rend it sleeps peacefully beneath the •waves; the storm that shall burst forth at tne end of the month is slumbering far beyond pur gaze, in tho secret of the/skies. ■Normally, were nothing written, had the catastrophe not already taken place in the future, fifty passengers would have ornved from five or six different countries, and havo duly gone ou board. But destiny has clearly marked tho vessel for its own. She must certainly perish. And for months past, perhaps for years, a. mysterious selection has been at work amongst the passengers who were to have departed 1Ip ? n c I?.. 8 " 116 da y- Ifc is Possible that put of fifty who had originally intended to sail, only twenty will cross,the sjongway at the moment of lifting the anchor " And here, in attempting to explain how the voice of Chance" speaks to some and leaves others unaffected, it is that the mystic touches what lie describes as ! the protoundest depths of the profoundest of human enigmas." Obscuro forces, w says, surround us, but .the one, that concerns us most nearly lies at' the very centre of our being. This he calls unconsciousness. If we unweariedly follow each path that leads from our consciousness to our -unconsciousness, we shall, in his view, succeed in hewing some kind of track along the as yet impassable roads that lead "from the seen to the unseen, from man to God, from the individual to the universe."

Written In the Universe. Applying the theory to the shipwreck, Maeterlinck says that-our unconsciousness must be aware of the catastrophe, for it knows neither time no; , space, and- the disaster is as actually happening before its eyes as before the eyes of the enternal powers. Granted this nil-knowing, innermost self, the rest is-all a matter of degree. In some people the- process of penetrating from the inner to the outer con6ciousness_ i 3 easy of accomplishment, in others it is difficult or impossible. Maeterlinck takes note of three degrees of development. Of the fifty travellers by the ship that is to be wrecked, two or three will have a real presentiment of the danger; these are the ones in whom unconsciousness is free and untrammelled, is'ext are those in. whom the inner warning voice is-working, though they knowit not. "They fall ill, tako a wrong road, change their plans, meet with some insignificant adventure, have a quarrel, a love affair, a moment of idleness or forgetfulness, which detains them in spite of themselves Tho efforts that their unconsciousness has put forth to save them have their working so deep down that most of these men will have no idea that they owe their life to a fortunate chance." Last come those who punctually keep their appointment on board the fatal vessel. They, he Fays, belong to the tribe of the unlucky. They are the ill-starred ones who invariably travel by_ the train that is destined to leave the rails, or pass underneath the tower at tho exact moment of its collapse. Of them he says in pregnant phrase, their unconscious soul fails to perform its .duty. It is to these luckless ones that Maeterlinck devotes much thought in his striking essay on luck in 1113 volume, "The Buried Temple/' to which, those interested in the subject may turn.