Maeterlinck was not quite fifty years old when the Nobel honor came to him. He was born in Ghent, in 1862, of good ancestry. He recalled the surroundings of his early life--the gardens and the sea and the ships in sight. Especially was he interested in the Flemish peasants as they sat, in quiet, stolid attitudes, in the doorways of their cottages or by the smoking lamps. One group impressed his boyhood memory, as he saw them on his way from school--seven toothless brothers and a sister. Their lethargy and inert lives awakened him, in young manhood, to psychological curiosity; their strange traditions and unreasoning fears are reflected in some of his plays. His father was anxious to have him study law, so he read and practised for a little time in Ghent--long enough “to lose a case or two,” he said with humorous reminiscence. He spent seven years at a Jesuit College, and showed a mind of philosophical trend. He thought that in Paris he might come into contact with men of literary rank and scholars. Villiers was his especial influence there; another inspirational friend was Octave Mirabeau to whom Maeterlinck dedicated his first published plays, _Princess Maleine_ and _Pelléas and Mélisande_. In too extravagant praise Mirabeau hailed Maeterlinck as “the Belgian Shakespeare” and Maeterlinck became the victim of flattery, on one hand, and ridicule on the other. He bore himself with calm dignity then as he has all his life; his serene manner and low voice, in contrast with his muscular physique, have been noted by many acquaintances.