THE PREDESTINED

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 809, 1 November 1929, Page 14

THE PREDESTINED

Earth Visitors Who Soon Pass By [Written for The £u/i.J stay among us is often so short that we are unconscious of their presence they go av ay without saying a word, and are for ever unknown to us. But others there are who linger for a momeift, who look at us with an eager smile, and teem to be on the point of confessing that they know all; and then, they Isave us, hurriedly, muffling their footsteps, as though they had just discovered they had chosen the wrong dwellingplace, and been about to pass their lives among men whom they did not know.” The above passage will be recognised by lovers of Maurice Maeterlinck as coming from the essay. “The Predestined” in the collection entitled ‘‘The Treasure of the Humble.” There are few of us who cannot recall the passage of some such spirit across our own lives. It may be the merest child who has so impressed us. Stephen Phillips has written of one such in his poem “A Gleam,” from which I quote: But still you remember the other, the girl child that vanished; Scarce had e kissed her w ith awe, when she died; We but named her and lost her. And they say to us “Why, oh. why With your beautiful boy in your sight. Do ye still hark back to the other face that is fled?’* But because of her swiftness in passing, Because she just smiled and died, She moves us more than the other to tender thought And wistful puzzle of tears. I shall know ere the sun arises. By a sudden stirring of leaves. Or blind slight touch in the dark. Or face upturned in cpjivering dream That your heart, like mine, has gone in the hush to its dead, Through dew and beginning birds unto her hath returned, Who dazzled and left us in darkness, But a beam, but a gleam. But apart from one’s private expedience there are those who have hold upon the common imagination of mankind. This has been the case, no doubt, in all ages, and in all countries. I propose to cite here two names that will at once bring to the mind of the modern thinking and reading Englishman that sense of a rape passage through life. Rupert Brooke was proclaimed by all his friends as one such. Apart from his art, his personality survives, and will survive, as a legend among those who have never met him. Many readers will remember a poem by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, which first appeared in the “‘C on temporary Review.” Therein he recalls a certain day. when, sitting at his desk, amid sunshine that would beckon him outside, he receives a v.otally unexpected visit from Brooke. He could almost persuade himself that he had been vouchsafed a vision, so radiant is the being of his friend, fresh from across country. Another such a spirit is that of Maggie Albenezi, whose career as an actress was so suddenly and tragically cut shoft by death. Her biography, written by her mother Madam Albenezi, the novelist, has recently appeared. Making all due allowance for the author’s circumstances, we cannot but feel that we are here presented with just such a figure as Maeterlinck suggests in the foregoing passage. When a mother writes the life of her child It is natural enough that she should write the life of the child paramount. It Is from the letters of friends Incorporated in the volume that we elicit this sense of a brief and bright passage through their lives. Maggie Albenezi lived to create little more than half a dozen roles, but she left upon her day the mark of her genius. Apart from her acting she drew from her friends a kind of unconscious honmge. In a profession where jealousy is an easy and a sudden growth, her place was never questioned. One might almost think that her destiny hung about her, and to be jealous of her would seem to be a kind of irrelevance. These are but two names, taken at random to illustrate the Maeterlinck thesis.

Every reader could recall many other such. The Belgian poet does not to-day enjoy the vogue that was his after the appearance of “The Blue Bird.” His is preminently a preWar reputation. In the essay from which I have quoted, it may seem to some that he is merely weaving subtleties about the classical common place that the gods love those who die young. Still, it seems to me the test of an author’s greatness is the readiness with which one turns to him in search of an analogy. A recent perusal of Madame Albanezi’s veracious and pathetic account, set me. for one. at any rate, upon a search for that so well remembered passage. Predestination has for most of us a theological and controversial ring about it. Like all good essayists Maeterlinck labours his point, and for those who forget that he is dealing with intuitions rather than facts it may seem he fs but sowing the wind. . . . Still, for a thousand and one who live by intuition there is but one with the power to express in words such an idea as that with which Maeterlinck deals In “The Predestined/' C. R. ALLEN.