Maeterlinck and the War.

Progress, Volume XIV, Issue 11, 1 July 1919, Page 555

Maeterlinck and the War.

The following pronouncement of Maeterlinck with regard to those who have given their lives in the great war for the cause of liberty and humanity is well worth pondering: —

"Those Avho die for their country should not be numbered with the dead. We must call them by another name. They have nothing in common Avith those Avho end in their beds a life that is Avorn out, a life almost too long and often useless. Death, Avhich is ever elseAvhere is but an object of fear and horror, bringing nought but nothingness and despair. . . . This death on the field of battle, in the clash of glory, becomes more beautiful than birth and exhales a grace greater than that of love. No life will ever give Avhat their youth is offering us—that youth- AA r hich gives in one moment the days and the years that lay before it. There is no sacrifice to be compared Avith that which they have made; for which reason there is no glory that can soar so high as theirs; no gratitude that can surpass the gratitude which Ave owe them. They have not only a right to the foremost place in our memories; they have a right to everything that Ave have, since Ave exist only through them. And noAV it is in us that their life so suddenly cut short must resume its course. Whatever be our faith and Avhatever the God whom it adores, one thing is almost always certain, and in spite of all appearances is daily becoming more and more certain, it is that Death and Life are comingled. The dead and the living are but moments, hardly dissimilar, of a single and infinite existence, and members of one immortal family. They are not beneath the earth in the depths of their tombs; they lie deep in hearts where all that they once were will continue to live and to act; and they live in. us even as Ave die in them. They see usthey understand us more clearly than AA r hen they were in our arms; let us then keep • a watch upon ourselves so that they Avitness no actions and hear no Avords but Avords and actions that shall be worthy of them— glorious dead, Avho died for you and me,"