Transcriber's Note:
A Table of Contents has been added.
The Inner Beauty By Maurice Maeterlinck
CONTENTS
| Chapter | Page |
| THE INNER BEAUTY | 7 |
| THE INVISIBLE GOODNESS | 39 |
| SILENCE | 62 |
THE INNER BEAUTY
Nothing in the whole world is so athirst for beauty as the soul, nor isthere anything to which beauty clings so readily.
There is nothing in the world capable of such spontaneous uplifting, ofsuch speedy ennoblement; nothing that offers more scrupulous obedienceto the pure and noble commands it receives.
There is nothing in the world that yields deeper submission to theempire of a thought that is loftier than other thoughts. And on this[Pg 8]earth of ours there are but few souls that can withstand the dominionof the soul that has suffered itself to become beautiful.
In all truth might it be said that beauty is the unique aliment of oursoul, for in all places does it search for beauty, and it perishes notof hunger even in the most degraded of lives. For indeed nothing ofbeauty can pass by and be altogether unperceived. Perhaps does it neverpass by save only in our unconsciousness, but its action is no lesspuissant in gloom of night than by light of day; the joy it procures maybe less tangible, but other difference there is none.
Look at the most ordinary of men, at a time when a little beauty hascontrived to steal into their darkness. They have come together, itmatters not where, and for no special reason; but no sooner are they[Pg 9]assembled than their very first thought would seem to be to close thegreat doors of life. Yet has each one of them, when alone, more thanonce lived in accord with his soul. He has loved perhaps, of a surety hehas suffered. Inevitably must he, too, have heard the sounds that comefrom the distant country of Splendor and Terror, and many an evening hashe bowed down in silence before laws that are deeper than the sea. Andyet when these men are assembled it is with the basest of things thatthey love to debauch themselves. They have a strange indescribable fearof beauty, and as their number increases so does this fear becomegreater, resembling indeed their dread of silence or of a verity that istoo pure. And so true is this that, were one of them to have done[Pg 10]something heroic in the course of the day, he would ascribe wretchedmotives to his conduct, thereby endeavoring to find excuses for it, andthese motives would lie readily to his hand in that lower region wherehe and his fellows were assembled.
And yet listen: a proud and lofty word has been spoken, a word that hasin a measure undammed the springs of life. For one instant has a souldared to reveal itself, even such as it is in love and sorrow, such asit is in face of death and in the solitude that dwells around the starsof night. Disquiet prevai