"It is very astonishing that others can thus penetrate into the last refuge of our being, and there, better than ourselves, read thoughts and sentiments at times forgotten or rejected, but always long-lived, or as yet unformulated. It is really disconcerting that a stranger should see further than ourselves into our own hearts. That sheds a singular light on the nature of our inner lives. It is vain for us to keep watch upon ourselves, to shut ourselves up within ourselves; our consciousness is not water-tight, it escapes, it does not belong to us, and though it requires special circumstances for another to install himself there and take possession of it, nevertheless it is certain that, in normal life, our spiritual tribunal, our _for interieur_,--as the French have called it, with that profound intuition which we often discover in the etymology of words,--is a kind of _forum_, or spiritual market place, in which the majority of those who have business there come and go at will, look about them and pick out the truths, in a very different fashion and much more freely than we would have to this day believed." Mr. Maeterlinck reiterates that it is incredible that we should not know the future. The truth is that it is even more than incredible; it is unpardonably stupid, and the great desideratum is to so develop and unfold the spiritual faculties that they will discern the experiences on the spiritual side,--those which will, later on, precipitate themselves into the mortal life, and that will be "knowing the future." That is to say, if we can read our spiritual past, we then know our earthly future; for that which _has_ been, in the inner experience, _shall be_, in the outer experience. Mr. Maeterlinck says:--