now," and with these words ends her book.

When religion, science and morality are shaken, the two last by
the strong hand of Nietzsche, and when the outer supports
threaten to fall, man turns his gaze from externals in on to
himself. Literature, music and art are the first and most
sensitive spheres in which this spiritual revolution makes itself
felt. They reflect the dark picture of the present time and show
the importance of what at first was only a little point of light
noticed by few and for the great majority non-existent. Perhaps
they even grow dark in their turn, but on the other hand they
turn away from the soulless life of the present towards those
substances and ideas which give free scope to the non-material
strivings of the soul.

A poet of this kind in the realm of literature is Maeterlinck. He
takes us into a world which, rightly or wrongly, we term
supernatural. La Princesse Maleine, Les Sept Princesses, Les
Aveugles, etc., are not people of past times as are the heroes in
Shakespeare. They are merely souls lost in the clouds, threatened
by them with death, eternally menaced by some invisible and
sombre power.

Spiritual darkness, the insecurity of ignorance and fear pervade
the world in which they move. Maeterlinck is perhaps one of the
first prophets, one of the first artistic reformers and seers to
herald the end of the decadence just described. The gloom of the
spiritual atmosphere, the terrible, but all-guiding hand, the
sense of utter fear, the feeling of having strayed from the path,
the confusion among the guides, all these are clearly felt in his