Prophets of Dissent : Essays on Maeterlinck, Strindberg, Nietzsche and Tolstoy — Nietzsche — John Shaqi
Prophets of Dissent : Essays on Maeterlinck, Strindberg, Nietzsche and Tolstoy
Nietzsche · en
will end by conquering death."
(10) "The Light Beyond" (1917) is not a new work at all, but merely a
combination of parts from "Our Eternity" and "The Wrack of the Storm."
(11) "The Wrack of the Storm," p. 144 f.
In the concluding chapter of "Our Eternity," the romantic modification
of Maeterlinck's mysticism is made patent in his confession regarding
the problem of Knowledge: "I have added nothing to what was already
known. I have simply tried to separate what may be true from that which
is assuredly not true.... Perhaps through our quest for that
undiscoverable Truth we shall have accustomed our eyes to pierce the
terror of the last hour by looking it full in the face.... We need have
no hope that any one will utter on this earth the word that shall put an
end to our uncertainties. It is very probable, on the contrary, that no
one in this world, nor perhaps in the next, will discover the great
secret of the universe. And ... it is most fortunate that it should be
so. We have not only to resign ourselves to living in the
incomprehensible, but to rejoice that we cannot get out of it. If there
were no more insoluble questions ... infinity would not be infinite; and
then we should have forever to curse the fate that placed us in a
universe proportionate to our intelligence. The unknown and the
unknowable are necessary and will perhaps always be necessary to our
happiness. In any case, I would not wish my worst enemy, were his
understanding a thousandfold loftier and a thousandfold mightier than
mine, to be condemned eternally to inhabit a world of which he had
surprised an essential secret...."(12)
(12) Quoted from the excellent translation by A. T. de Mattos.
So the final word of Maeterlinck's philosophy, after a lifetime of
ardent search, clears up none of the tantalizing secrets of our
existence. And yet somehow it bears a message that is full of
consolation. The value of human life lies in the perpetual movement
towards a receding goal. Whoever can identify himself with such a
philosophy and accept its great practical lesson, that we shall never
reach Knowledge but acquire wisdom in the pursuit, should be able to
envisage the veiled countenance of Truth without despair, and even to
face with some courage the eternal problem of our being, its reason and
its destination.
II
THE ECCENTRICITY OF AUGUST STRINDBERG