"Naturally I read Browning; who does not?" he said, with the naïve intonation that becomes him so well. "Luria I have known for a long time, but Luria is not a stage play;" which, coming from the author of Les Aveugles, I considered sublime. He is quite right--Monna Vanna and Luria have little in common except that the scenes of both are laid at Pisa, and that both Luria and Prinzevalle were treated badly by an ungrateful country. But then, so was Coriolanus and a host of other historical patriots. Maeterlinck spoke of Shakespeare as other men mention their deity. He knows Poe very well, and also Walt Whitman. A study of Maeterlinck's art reveals the evolution of a mystic, the creation of a dream theatre, the master of a mystic positivism. In Edgar Quinet's romance, Merlin, we read of a visit made by the magician to Prester John at his abbey. This abbey is an astounding conglomeration of architectures--pagoda, mosque, basilica, Greek temple, synagogue, cathedral, Byzantine and Gothic chapels, turrets, minarets, and towers in bewildering array. Prester John is a venerable man with a long, white beard. "Upon his head he wore a turban enriched with a sapphire cross At his neck hung a golden crescent, and he supported himself upon a staff after the manner of a Brahman. Three children followed him, who carried each upon the breast an open book. The first was the collection of the Vedas, the second was the Bible, the third the Koran. At certain moments Prester John stopped and read a few lines from one of the sacred volumes; after which he continued his walk, his eyes fixed upon the stars." Maurice Maeterlinck recalls this type of eclectic culture. Eclectic is his taste in creeds and cultures. And in this he is the true man of the twentieth century, summing up in himself the depths and shallows, virtues and defects, of cultured eclecticism. The greater part of the foregoing essays, now completely revised, first appeared in the columns of the New York _Sun_ at the time the author was dramatic editor of that journal. He wishes to acknowledge here the courtesy of William M. Laffan, Esq. in the matter of their republication.