I have collected in the present volume a selection of essays illustrating the later stages of Maeterlinck’s quest. Never in history have so many women and men, stricken suddenly and without warning, sought so unanimously and painfully to penetrate the veil wherein the world’s oldest mystery is shrouded. The finality of death was a challenge flung down and eagerly taken up by all whom the loss of son or brother had taken unawares. To Maeterlinck the war has brought in great part the annihilation of a people, his own people; it has inspired him to a splendour of indignation and pity; but, more gravely and urgently than ever before, it has demanded of him an answer to the question of the Sadducees, who “say there is no resurrection.” Readers wishing to study the complete series of essays from which the sixteen in this volume are taken will find them in the three books entitled, _Our Eternity_, _The Unknown Guest_ and _The Wrack of the Storm_, all of which are issued by the present publishers. ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS CHELSEA, _9 April 1917_ CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION vii I. OUR INJUSTICE TO DEATH 13 II. ANNIHILATION 31 III. COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE DEAD 37 IV. OUR ULTIMATE CONSCIOUSNESS 63 V. THE TWO ASPECTS OF INFINITY 75 VI. OUR FATE IN THOSE INFINITIES 89 VII. CONCLUSIONS 105 VIII. THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE FUTURE 115 IX. HEROISM 181 X. ON RE-READING THUCYDIDES 193 XI. THE DEAD DO NOT DIE 205 XII. IN MEMORIAM 213 XIII. THE LIFE OF THE DEAD 217 XIV. THE WAR AND THE PROPHETS 225 XV. THE WILL OF EARTH 237 XVI. WHEN THE WAR IS OVER 247 I OUR INJUSTICE TO DEATH 1 It has been well said: “Death and death alone is what we must consult about life; and not some vague future or survival, where we shall not be. It is our own end; and everything happens in the interval between death and now. Do not talk to me of those imaginary prolongations which wield over us the childish spell of number; do not talk to me—to me who am to die outright—of societies and peoples! There is no reality, there is no true duration, save that between the cradle and the grave. The rest is mere bombast, show, delusion! They call me a master because of some magic in my speech and thoughts; but I am a frightened child in the presence of death!”[1] 2