Amen! That leaves us where we started. But the fact, the cold, interesting, magnificent fact, is that we are alive, and some of us are working and some are playing. Maeterlinck is a great child playing with flowers and with words. He is also a competent workman, and he is assisted by another skilful craftsman to whom English readers owe much, Mr. Alexander Teixeira de Mattos, who translates Maeterlinck into English. He is a fine artist. Following faithfully the run of our English idiom, he succeeds in keeping for our Anglo-Saxon eyes and ears the color, tone, or whatever it is, of Maeterlinck's beautiful style. JOSEPH CONRAD To the newest generation of adult readers the dawn of a literary light is a rare experience. It is as if the courses of our literature were Arctic in their slowness, as if the day came at long intervals, and then without warmth or brilliance. Our fathers knew the joy of welcoming the latest novel of Dickens or a new volume of essays by Carlyle. The only[1] great day whose beginning young men have witnessed is the day of Kipling; his light mounted rapidly to a high noon, and if the afternoon shadows have begun to deepen prematurely, that sun is still beautiful and strong. Other lights have kindled in the last fifteen years, and have gone out before they had fairly dislodged the darkness, or have continued to burn dimly. [1] I ask the reader to remember that this was written in 1906. Eyes accustomed only to darkness and uncertain lights are in condition to be deluded by the phantoms of false dawn; it is therefore unwise to greet with too much enthusiasm the arrival of Mr. Joseph Conrad. Even if the dawn is real, it is certainly overcast with heavy clouds, and it has not proved bright enough to startle the world. Nevertheless, his light is of unique beauty in contemporary literature, and the story of its kindling makes interesting biography.