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_The Inner Beauty_

_By_

_Maurice Maeterlinck_

[Illustration: Decoration]

_New York_

_A. L. Chatterton Company_




THE INNER BEAUTY


Nothing in the whole world is so athirst for beauty as the soul, nor is
there anything to which beauty clings so readily.

There is nothing in the world capable of such spontaneous uplifting, of
such speedy ennoblement; nothing that offers more scrupulous obedience
to the pure and noble commands it receives.

There is nothing in the world that yields deeper submission to the
empire of a thought that is loftier than other thoughts. And on this
earth of ours there are but few souls that can withstand the dominion
of the soul that has suffered itself to become beautiful.

In all truth might it be said that beauty is the unique aliment of our
soul, for in all places does it search for beauty, and it perishes not
of hunger even in the most degraded of lives. For indeed nothing of
beauty can pass by and be altogether unperceived. Perhaps does it never
pass by save only in our unconsciousness, but its action is no less
puissant in gloom of night than by light of day; the joy it procures may
be less tangible, but other difference there is none.

Look at the most ordinary of men, at a time when a little beauty has
contrived to steal into their darkness. They have come together, it
matters not where, and for no special reason; but no sooner are they
assembled than their very first thought would seem to be to close the
great doors of life. Yet has each one of them, when alone, more than
once lived in accord with his soul. He has loved perhaps, of a surety he
has suffered. Inevitably must he, too, have heard the sounds that come
from the distant country of Splendor and Terror, and many an evening has
he bowed down in silence before laws that are deeper than the sea. And
yet when these men are assembled it is with the basest of things that
they love to debauch themselves. They have a strange indescribable fear
of beauty, and as their number increases so does this fear become
greater, resembling indeed their dread of silence or of a verity that is
too pure. And so true is this that, were one of them to have done
something heroic in the course of the day, he would ascribe wretched
motives to his conduct, thereby endeavoring to find excuses for it, and
these motives would lie readily to his hand in that lower region where
he and his fellows were assembled.

And yet listen: a proud and lofty word has been spoken, a word that has
in a measure undammed the springs of life. For one instant has a soul
dared to reveal itself, even such as it is in love and sorrow, such as
it is in face of death and in the solitude that dwells around the stars
of night. Disquiet prevails, on some faces there is astonishment, others
smile. But have you never felt at moments such as those how unanimous is
the fervor wherewith every soul admires, and how unspeakably even the
very feeblest, from the remotest depths of its dungeon, approves the
word it has recognized as akin to itself? For they have all suddenly
sprung to life again in the primitive and normal atmosphere that is
their own; and could you but hearken with angels' ears, I doubt not but
you would hear mightiest applause in that kingdom of amazing radiance
wherein the souls do dwell.

Do you not think that even the most timid of them would take courage
unto themselves were but similar words to be spoken every evening? Do
you not think that men would live purer lives? And yet though the word
come not again, still will something momentous have happened, that must
leave still more momentous trace behind. Every evening will its sisters
recognize the soul that pronounced the word, and henceforth, be the
conversation never so trivial, its mere presence will, I know not how,
add thereto something of majesty. Whatever else betide, there has been a
change that we cannot determine. No longer will such absolute power be
vested in the baser side of things, and henceforth, even the most
terror-stricken of souls will know that there is somewhere a place of
refuge....

Certain it is that the natural and primitive relationship of soul to
soul is a relationship of beauty. For beauty is the only language of our
soul; none other is known to it. It has no other life, it can produce
nothing else, in nothing else can it take interest. And therefore it is
that the most oppressed, nay, the most degraded of souls--if it may
truly be said that a soul can be degraded--immediately hail with
acclamation every thought, every word or deed, that is great and
beautiful.

Beauty is the only element wherewith the soul is organically connected,
and it has no other standard of judgment. This is brought home to us at
every moment of our life, and is no less evident to the man by whom
beauty may more than once have been denied than to him who is ever
seeking it in his heart. Should a day come when you stand in profoundest
need of another's sympathy, would you go to him who was wont to greet
the passage of beauty with a sneering smile? Would you go to him whose
shake of the head had sullied a generous action or a mere impulse that
was pure? Even though perhaps you had been of those who commended him,
you would none the less, when it was truth that knocked at your door,
turn to the man who had known how to prostrate himself and love. In its
very depths had your soul passed its judgment, and it is the silent and
unerring judgment that will rise to the surface, after thirty years
perhaps, and send you towards a sister who shall be more truly you than
you are yourself, for that she has been nearer to beauty.... There needs
but so little to encourage beauty in our soul; so little to awaken the
slumbering angels; or perhaps is there no need of awakening--it is
enough that we lull them not to sleep.

It requires more effort to fall, perhaps, than to rise.

Can we, without putting constraint upon ourselves, confine our thoughts
to everyday things at times when the sea stretches before us, and we are
face to face with the night? And what soul is there but knows that it
is ever confronting the sea, ever in presence of an eternal night?

Did we but dread beauty less it would come about that nought else in
life would be visible; for in reality it is beauty that underlies
everything, it is beauty alone that exists. There is no soul but is
conscious of this, none that is not in readiness; but where are those
that hide not their beauty? And yet must one of them "begin." Why not
dare to be the one to "begin." The others are all watching eagerly
around us like little children in front of a marvelous place. They press
upon the threshold, whispering to each other and peering through every
crevice, but there is not one who dares put his shoulder to the door.
They are all waiting for some grown-up person to come and fling it
open. But hardly ever does such a one pass by.

And yet what is needed to become the grown-up person for whom they lie
in wait? So little! The soul is not exacting. A thought that is almost
beautiful--a thought that you speak not, but that you cherish within you
at this moment, will irradiate you as though you were a transparent
vase. They will see it and their greeting to you will be very different
than had you been meditating how best to deceive your brother.

We are surprised when certain men tell us that they have never come
across real ugliness, that they cannot conceive that a soul can be base.

Yet need there be no cause for surprise. These men had "begun." They
themselves had been the first to be beautiful, and had therefore
attracted all the beauty that passed by, as a lighthouse attracts the
vessels from the four corners of the horizon. But there are those who
complain of women, for instance, never dreaming that, the first time a
man meets a woman, a single word or thought that denies the beautiful or
profound will be enough to poison for ever his existence in her soul.
"For my part," said a sage to me one day, "I have never come across a
single woman who did not bring to me something that was great." He was
great himself first of all; therein lay his secret.

There is one thing only that the soul can never forgive; it is to have
been compelled to behold, or share, or pass close to an ugly action,
word, or thought. It cannot forgive, for forgiveness here were but the
denial of itself.

And yet with the generality of men, ingenuity, strength and skill do but
imply that the soul must first of all be banished from their life, and
that every impulse that lies too deep must be carefully brushed aside.
Even in love do they act thus, and therefore, it is that the woman, who
is so much nearer the truth, can scarcely ever live a moment of the true
life with them. It is as though men dreaded the contact of their soul,
and were anxious to keep its beauty at immeasurable distance. Whereas,
on the contrary, we should endeavor to move in advance of ourselves.

If at this moment you think or say something that is too beautiful to be
true in you--if you have but endeavored to think or say it to-day, on
the morrow it will be true. We must try to be more beautiful than
ourselves; we shall never distance our soul.

We can never err when it is question of silent or hidden beauty.
Besides, so long as the spring within us be limpid, it matters but
little whether error there be or not. But do any of us ever dream of
making the slightest unseen effort? And yet in the domain where we are
everything is effective, for that everything is waiting.

All the doors are unlocked, we have but to push them open, and the
palace is full of manacled queens.

A single word will very often suffice to clear the mountain of refuse.

Why not have the courage to meet a base question with a noble answer? Do
you imagine it would pass quite unnoticed or merely arouse surprise? Do
you not think it would be more akin to the discourse that would
naturally be held between two souls? We know not where it may give
encouragement, where freedom. Even he who rejects your word will, in
spite of himself, have taken a step towards the beauty that is within
him.

Nothing of beauty dies without having purified something, nor can aught
of beauty be lost. Let us not be afraid of sowing it along the road. It
may remain there for weeks or years, but like the diamond it cannot
dissolve, and finally there will pass by some one whom its glitter will
attract; he will pick it up and go his way, rejoicing. Then why keep
back a lofty, beautiful word, for that you doubt whether others will
understand? An instant of higher goodness was impending over you; why
hinder its coming, even though you believe not that those about you will
profit thereby? What if you are among men of the valley, is that
sufficient reason for checking the instinctive movement of your soul
towards the mountain peaks? Does darkness rob deep feeling of its power?

Have the blind nought but their eyes wherewith to distinguish those who
love them from those who love them not? Can the beauty not exist that is
not understood, and is there not in every man something that does
understand--in regions far beyond what he seems to understand, far
beyond, too, what he believes he understands? "Even to the very
wretchedest of all," said to me one day the loftiest minded creature it
has ever been my happiness to know, "even to the very wretchedest of
all I never have the courage to say anything in reply that is ugly or
mediocre." I have for a long time followed that man's life, and have
seen the inexplicable power he exercised over the most obscure, the most
unapproachable, the blindest, even the most rebellious of souls. For no
tongue can tell the power of a soul that strives to live in an
atmosphere of beauty, and is actively beautiful in itself. And indeed is
it not the quality of this activity that renders life either miserable
or divine?

If we could but probe to the root of things it might well be discovered
that it is by the strength of some souls that are beautiful that others
are sustained in life.

Is it not the idea we each form of certain chosen ones that constitutes
the only living, effective morality? But in this idea how much is there
of the soul that is chosen, how much of him who chooses?

Do not these things blend very mysteriously, and does not this ideal
morality lie infinitely deeper than the morality of the most beautiful
books? A far-reaching influence exists therein whose limits it is indeed
difficult to define, and a fountain of strength whereat we all of us
drink many times a day. Would not any weakness in one of those creatures
whom you thought perfect, and loved in the region of beauty, at once
lessen your confidence in the universal greatness of things, and would
your admiration for them suffer?

And again, I doubt whether anything in the world can beautify a soul
more spontaneously, more naturally, than the knowledge that somewhere in
its neighborhood there exists a pure and noble being whom it can
unreservedly love. When the soul has veritably drawn near to such a
being, beauty is no longer a lovely, lifeless thing, that one exhibits
to the stranger, for it suddenly takes unto itself an imperious
existence, and its activity becomes so natural as to be henceforth
irresistible. Wherefore you will do well to think it over, for none are
alone, and those who are good must watch.

Plotinus, in the eighth book of the fifth "Ennead," after speaking of
the beauty that is "intelligible"--_i. e._ divine--concludes thus: "As
regards ourselves, we are beautiful when we belong to ourselves, and
ugly when we lower ourselves to our inferior nature. Also are we
beautiful when we know such knowledge." Bear it in mind, however, that
here we are on the mountains, where not to know oneself means far more
than mere ignorance of what takes place within us at moments of jealousy
or love, fear or envy, happiness or unhappiness. Here not to know
oneself means to be unconscious of all the divine that throbs in man.

As we wander from the gods within us so does ugliness enwrap us; as we
discover them, so do we become more beautiful. But it is only by
revealing the divine that is in us that we may discover the divine in
others.

Needs must one god beckon to another, and no signal is so imperceptible
but they will every one of them respond. It cannot be said too often
that, be the crevice never so small, it will yet suffice for all the
waters of heaven to pour into our soul.

Every cup is stretched out to the unknown spring, and we are in a
region where none think of aught but beauty.

If we could ask of an angel what it is that our souls do in the shadow,
I believe the angel would answer, after having looked for many years
perhaps, and seen far more than the things the soul seems to do in the
eyes of men, "They transform into beauty all the little things that are
given to them." Ah! we must admit that the human soul is possessed of
singular courage! Resignedly does it labor, its whole life long, in the
darkness whither most of us relegate it, where it is spoken to by none.
There, never complaining, does it do all that in its power lies,
striving to tear from out the pebbles we fling to it the nucleus of
eternal light that peradventure they contain. And in the midst of its
work it is ever lying in wait for the moment when it may show, to a
sister who is more tenderly cared for, or who chances to be nearer, the
treasures it has so toilfully amassed.

But thousands of existences there are that no sister visits; thousands
of existences wherein life has infused such timidity into the soul that
it departs without saying a word, without even once having been able to
deck itself with the humblest jewels of its humble crown....

And yet, in spite of all, does it watch over everything from out its
invisible heaven. It warns and loves, it admires, attracts, repels. At
every fresh event does it rise to the surface, where it lingers till it
be thrust down again, being looked upon as wearisome and insane. It
wanders to and fro, like Cassandra at the gates of the Atrides. It is
ever giving utterance to words of shadowy truth, but there are none to
listen. When we raise our eyes it yearns for a ray of sun or star, that
it may weave into a thought, or, haply, an impulse, which shall be
unconscious and very pure. And if our eyes bring it nothing, still will
it know how to turn its pitiful disillusion into something ineffable,
that it will conceal even till its death.

When we love, how eagerly does it drink in the light from behind the
closed door--keen with expectation, it yet wastes not a minute, and the
light that steals through the apertures becomes beauty and truth to the
soul. But if the door open not (and how many lives are there wherein it
does open?) it will go back into its prison, and its regret will
perhaps be a loftier verity that shall never be seen, for we are now in
the region of transformations whereof none may speak; and though nothing
born this side of the door can be lost, yet does it never mingle with
our life....

I said just now that the soul changed into beauty the little things we
gave to it. It would even seem, the more we think of it, that the soul
has no other reason for existence, and that all its activity is consumed
in amassing, at the depths of us, a treasure of indescribable beauty.
Might not everything naturally turn into beauty, were we not unceasingly
interrupting the arduous labors of our soul? Does not evil itself become
precious so soon as it has gathered therefrom the deep lying diamond of
repentance? The acts of injustice whereof you have been guilty, the
tears you have caused to flow, will not these end too by becoming so
much radiance and love in your soul? Have you ever cast your eyes into
this kingdom of purifying flame that is within you?

Perhaps a great wrong may have been done you to-day, the act itself
being mean and disheartening, the mode of action of the basest, and
ugliness wrapped you round as your tears fell. But let some years
elapse, then give one look into your soul, and tell me whether, beneath
the recollection of that act, you see not something that is already
purer than thought; an indescribable, unnameable force that has nought
in common with the forces of this world; a mysterious inexhaustible
spring of the other life, whereat you may drink for the rest of your
days.

And yet will you have rendered no assistance to the untiring queen;
other thoughts will have filled your mind, and it will be without your
knowledge that the act will have been purified in the silence of your
being, and will have flown into the precious waters that lie in the
great reservoir of truth and beauty, which, unlike the shallower
reservoir of true or beautiful thoughts, has an ever unruffled surface,
and remains for all time out of reach of the breath of life.

Emerson tells us that there is not an act or event in our life but,
sooner or later, casts off its outer shell, and bewilders us by its
sudden flights from the very depths of us, on high into the empyrean.
And this is true to a far greater extent than Emerson had foreseen, for
the further we advance in these regions, the diviner are the spheres we
discover.

We can form no adequate conception of what this silent activity of the
souls that surround us may really mean. Perhaps you have spoken a pure
word to one of your fellows by whom it has not been understood. You look
upon it as lost and dismiss it from your mind. But one day,
peradventure, the word comes up again extraordinarily transformed, and
revealing the unexpected fruit it has borne in the darkness; then
silence once more falls over all. But it matters not; we have learned
that nothing can be lost in the soul, and that even to the very pettiest
there come moments of splendor.

It is unmistakably borne home to us that even the unhappiest and the
most destitute of men have at the depths of their being and in spite of
themselves a treasure of beauty that they cannot despoil. They have but
to acquire the habit of dipping into this treasurer. It suffices not
that beauty should keep solitary festival in life; it has to become a
festival of every day.

There needs no great effort to be admitted into the ranks of those
"whose eyes no longer behold earth in flower and sky in glory in
infinitesimal fragments, but indeed in sublime masses," and I speak here
of flowers and sky that are purer and more lasting than those that we
behold.

Thousands of channels there are through which the beauty of our soul may
sail even unto our thoughts. Above all is there the wonderful, central
channel of love.

Is it not in love that are found the purest elements of beauty that we
can offer to the soul?

Some there are who do thus in beauty love each other. And to love thus
means that, little by little, the sense of ugliness is lost; that one's
eyes are closed to all the littlenesses of life, to all but the
freshness and virginity of the very humblest of souls. Loving thus, we
have no longer even the need to forgive. Loving thus, we can no longer
have anything to conceal, for that the ever-present soul transforms all
things into beauty. It is to behold evil in so far only as it purifies
indulgence, and teaches us no longer to confound the sinner with his
sin. Loving thus do we raise on high within ourselves all those about
us who have attained an eminence where failure has become impossible;
heights whence a paltry action has so far to fall that, touching earth,
it is compelled to yield up its diamond soul.

It is to transform, though all unconsciously, the feeblest intention
that hovers about us into illimitable movement. It is to summon all that
is beautiful in earth, heaven or soul, to the banquet of love.

Loving thus, we do indeed exist before our fellows as we exist before
God. It means that the least gesture will call forth the presence of the
soul with all its treasure. No longer is there need of death, disaster
or tears for that the soul shall appear; a smile suffices.

Loving thus, we perceive truth in happiness as profoundly as some of
the heroes perceived it in the radiance of greatest sorrow. It means
that the beauty that turns into love is undistinguishable from the love
that turns into beauty. It means to be able no longer to tell where the
ray of a star leaves off and the kiss of an ordinary thought begins. It
means to have come so near to God that the angels possess us.

Loving thus, the same soul will have been so beautified by us all that
it will become, little by little, the "unique angel" mentioned by
Swedenborg. It means that each day will reveal to us a new beauty in
that mysterious angel, and that we shall walk together in a goodness
that shall ever become more and more living, loftier and loftier. For
there exists also a lifeless beauty, made up of the past alone; but the
veritable love renders the past useless, and its approach creates a
boundless future of goodness, without disaster and without tears.

To love thus is but to free one's soul, and to become as beautiful as
the soul thus freed. "If, in the emotion that this spectacle cannot fail
to awaken in thee," says the great Plotinus, when dealing with kindred
matters--and of all the intellects known to me that of Plotinus draws
the nearest to the divine--"If in the emotion that this spectacle cannot
fail to awaken in thee, thou proclaimest not that it is beautiful; and
if, plunging thine eyes into thyself, thou dost not then feel the charm
of beauty, it is in vain that, thy disposition being such, thou shouldst
seek the intelligible beauty; for thou wouldst seek it only with that
which is ugly and impure. Therefore it is that the discourse we hold
here is not addressed to all men. But if thou hast recognized beauty
within thyself, see that thou rise to the recollection of the
intelligible beauty."




THE INVISIBLE GOODNESS


It is a thing, said to me one evening the sage I had chanced to meet by
the sea shore, whereon the waves were breaking almost noiselessly--it is
a thing that we scarcely notice, that none seem to take into account,
and yet do I conceive it to be one of the forces that safeguard mankind.
In a thousand diverse ways do the gods from whom we spring reveal
themselves within us, but it may well be that this unnoticed secret
goodness, to which sufficiently direct allusion has never yet been made,
is the purest token of their eternal life. Whence it comes we know not.
It is there in its simplicity, smiling on the threshold of our soul;
and those in whom its smiles lies deepest, or shine forth most
frequently, may make us suffer day and night and they will, yet shall it
be beyond our power to cease to love them....

It is not of this world, and still are there few agitations of ours in
which it takes not part. It cares not to reveal itself even in look or
tear. Nay, it seeks concealment, for reasons one cannot divine. It is as
though it were afraid to make use of its power. It knows that its most
involuntary movement will cause immortal things to spring to life about
it; and we are miserly with immortal things. Why are we so fearful lest
we exhaust the heaven within us? We dare not act upon the whisper of the
God who inspires us. We are afraid of everything that cannot be
explained by word or gesture; and we shut our eyes to all that we do,
ourselves notwithstanding, in the empire where explanations are vain!

Whence comes the timidity of the divine in man? For truly might it be
said that the nearer a movement of our soul approaches the divine, so
much the more scrupulously do we conceal it from the eyes of our
brethren. Can it be that man is nothing but a frightened god? Or has the
command been laid upon us that the superior powers must not be betrayed?
Upon all that does not form part of this too visible world there rests
the tender meekness of the little ailing girl, for whom her mother will
not send when strangers come to the house.

And therefore it is that this secret goodness of ours has never yet
passed through the silent portals of our soul. It lives within us like a
prisoner forbidden to approach the barred window of her cell. But
indeed, what matter though it do not approach? Enough that it be there.
Hide as it may, let it but raise its head, move a link of its chain or
open its hand, and the prison is illumined, the pressure of radiance
from within bursts open the iron barrier, and then, suddenly, there
yawns a gulf between words and beings, a gulf peopled with agitated
angels; silence falls over all: the eyes turn away for a moment and two
souls embrace tearfully on the threshold....

It is not a thing that comes from this earth of ours, and all
descriptions can be of no avail. They who would understand must have, in
themselves too, the same point of sensibility. If you have never in
your life felt the power of your invisible goodness, go no further; it
would be useless. But are there really any who have not felt this power,
and have the worst of us never been invisibly good? I know not: of so
many in this world does the aim seem to be the discouragement of the
divine in their soul. And yet there needs but one instant of respite for
the divine to spring up again, and even the wickedest are not
incessantly on their guard; and hence doubtless has it arisen that so
many of the wicked are good, unseen of all, whereas divers saints and
sages are not invisibly good....

More than once have I been the cause of suffering, he went on, even as
each being is the cause of suffering about him.

I have caused suffering because we are in a world where all is held
together by invisible threads, in a world where none are alone, and
where the gentlest gesture of love or kindliness may so often wound the
innocence by our side!--

I have caused suffering, too, because there are times when the best and
tenderest are impelled to seek I know not what part of themselves in the
grief of others. For, indeed, there are seeds that only spring up in our
soul beneath the rain of tears shed because of us, and none the less do
these seeds produce good flowers and salutary fruit. What would you? It
is no law of our making, and I know not whether I would dare to love the
man who had made no one weep.

Frequently, indeed, will the greatest suffering be caused by those
whose love is greatest, for a strange, timid, tender cruelty is most
often the anxious sister of love. On all sides does love search for the
proofs of love, and the first proofs--who is not prone to discover them
in the tears of the beloved?

Even death could not suffice to reassure the lover who dared to give ear
to the unreasoning claims of love; for to the intimate cruelty of love,
the instant of death seems too brief; over beyond death there is yet
room for a sea of doubts, and even in those who die together may
disquiet still linger as they die. Long, slowly falling tears are needed
here. Grief is love's first food, and every love that has not been fed
on a little pure suffering must die like the babe that one had tried to
nourish on the nourishment of a man. Will the love inspired by the
woman who always brought the smile to your lips be quite the same as the
love you feel for her who at times called forth your tears? Alas! needs
must love weep, and often indeed is it at the very moment when the sobs
burst forth that love's chains are forged and tempered for life....

Thus, he continued, I have caused suffering because I loved, and also
have I caused suffering because I did not love--but how great was the
difference in the two cases! In the one the slowly dropping tears of
well-tried love seemed already to know, at the depths of them, that they
were bedewing all that was ineffable in our united souls; in the other
the poor tears knew that they were falling in solitude on a desert. But
it is at those very moments when the soul is all ear--or, haply, all
soul--that I have recognized the might of an invisible goodness that
could offer to the wretched tears of an expiring love the divine
illusions of a love on the eve of birth. Has there never come to you one
of those sorrowful evenings when dejection lay heavy upon your unsmiling
kisses, and it at length dawned upon your soul that it had been
mistaken? With direst difficulty did your words ring forth in the cold
air of the separation that was to be final; you were about to part for
ever, and your almost lifeless hands were outstretched for the farewell
of a departure that should know no return, when suddenly your soul made
an imperceptible movement within itself. On that instant did the soul by
the side of you awake on the summits of its being; something sprang to
life in regions loftier far than the love of jaded lovers; and for all
that the bodies might shrink asunder, henceforth would the souls never
forget that for an instant they had beheld each other high above
mountains they had never seen, and that for a second's space they had
been good with a goodness they had never known until that day....

What can this be, this mysterious movement that I speak of here in
connection with love only, but which may well take place in the smallest
events of life? Is it I know not what sacrifice or inner embrace, is it
the profoundest desire to be soul for a soul, or the consciousness, ever
quickening within us, of the presence of a life that is invisible, but
equal to our own? Is it all that is admirable and sorrowful in the mere
act of living that, at such moments, floods our being--is it the aspect
of life, one and indivisible? I know not; but in truth it is then that
we feel that there lurks, somewhere, an unknown force; it is then that
we feel that we are the treasures of an unknown God who loves all, that
not a gesture of this God may pass unperceived, and that we are at
length in the regions of things that do not betray themselves....

Certain it is that, from the day of our birth to the day of our death,
we never emerge from this clearly defined region, but wander in God like
helpless sleep-walkers, or like the blind who despairingly seek the very
temple in which they do indeed befind themselves. We are there in life,
man against man, soul against soul, and day and night are spent under
arms. We never see each other, we never touch each other. We see
nothing but bucklers and helmets, we touch nothing but iron and brass.
But let a tiny circumstance, come from the simpleness of the sky, for
one instant only cause the weapons to fall, are there not always tears
beneath the helmet, childlike smiles behind the buckler, and is not
another verity revealed?

He thought for a moment, then went on, more sadly: A woman--as I believe
I told you just now--a woman to whom I had caused suffering against my
will--for the most careful of us scatter suffering around them without
their knowledge--a woman to whom I had caused suffering against my will,
revealed to me one evening the sovereign power of this invisible good.
To be good we must needs have suffered; but perhaps it is necessary to
have caused suffering before we can become better. This was brought
home to me that evening. I felt that I had arrived, alone, at that sad
zone of kisses when it seems to us that we are visiting the hovels of
the poor, while she, who had lingered on the road, was still smiling in
the palace of the first days. Love, as men understand it, was dying
between us like a child stricken with a disease come one knows not
whence, a disease that has no pity. We said nothing. It would be
impossible for me to recall what my thoughts were at that earnest
moment. They were doubtless of no significance. I was probably thinking
of the last face I had seen, of the quivering gleam of a lantern at a
deserted street corner; and, nevertheless, everything took place in a
light a thousand times purer, a thousand times higher, than had there
intervened all the forces of pity and love which I command in my
thoughts and my heart. We parted, and not a word was spoken, but at one
and the same moment had we understood our inexpressible thought. We know
now that another love had sprung to life, a love that demands not the
words, the little attentions and smiles of ordinary love. We have never
met again. Perhaps centuries will elapse before we ever do meet again.


       "Much is to learn, much to forget,
       Through worlds I shall traverse not a few."

     before we shall again find ourselves in the same movement of the
     soul as on that evening: but we can well afford to wait....


And thus, ever since that day, have I greeted, in all places, even in
the very bitterest of moments, the beneficent presence of this
marvellous power. He who has but once clearly seen it, shall never again
find it possible to turn away from its face. You will often behold it
smiling in the last retreat of hatred, in the depths of the cruellest
tears. And yet does it not reveal itself to the eyes of the body. Its
nature changes from the moment that it manifests itself by means of an
exterior act; and we are no longer in the truth according to the soul,
but in a kind of falsehood as conceived by man. Goodness and love that
are self-conscious have no influence on the soul, for they have departed
from the kingdoms where they have their dwelling; but, do they only
remain blind, they can soften Destiny itself. I have known more than
one man who performed every act of kindness and mercy without touching a
single soul; and I have known others; who seemed to live in falsehood
and injustice, yet were no souls driven from them nor did any for an
instant even believe that these men were not good. Nay, more, even those
who do not know you, who are merely told of your acts of goodness and
deeds of love--if you be not good according to the invisible goodness,
these, even, will feel that something is lacking, and they will never be
touched in the depths of their being. One might almost believe that
there exists, somewhere, a place where all is weighed in the presence of
the spirits, or perhaps, out yonder, the other side of the night, a
reservoir of certitudes whither the silent herd of souls flock every
morning to slake their thirst.

Perhaps we do not yet know what the word "to love" means. There are
within us lives in which we love unconsciously. To love thus means more
than to have pity, to make inner sacrifices, to be anxious to help and
give happiness; it is a thing that lies a thousand fathoms deeper, where
our softest, swiftest, strongest words cannot reach it. At moments we
might believe it to be a recollection, furtive, but excessively keen, of
the great primitive unity. There is in this love a force that nothing
can resist. Which of us--and he question himself the side of the light,
from which our gaze is habitually averted--which of us but will find in
himself the recollection of certain strange workings of this force?
Which of us, when by the side of the most ordinary person perhaps, but
has suddenly become conscious of the advent of something that none had
summoned? Was it the soul, or perhaps life, that had turned within
itself like a sleeper on the point of awakening? I know not; nor did you
know, and no one spoke of it; but you did not separate from each other
as though nothing had happened.

To love thus is to love according to the soul; and there is no soul that
does not respond to this love. For the soul of man is a guest that has
gone hungry these centuries back, and never has it to be summoned twice
to the nuptial feast.

The souls of all our brethren are ever hovering about us, craving for a
caress, and only waiting for the signal. But how many beings there are
who all their life long have not dared make such a signal!

It is the disaster of our entire existence that we live thus away from
our soul, and stand in such dread of its slightest movement. Did we but
allow it to smile frankly in its silence and its radiance, we should be
already living an eternal life. We have only to think for an instant how
much it succeeds in accomplishing during those rare moments when we
knock off its chains--for it is our custom to enchain it as though it
were distraught--what it does in love, for instance, for there we do
permit it at times to approach the lattices of external life. And would
it not be in accordance with the primal truth if all men were to feel
that they were face to face with each other, even as the woman feels
with the man she loves?

This invisible and divine goodness, of which I only speak here because
of its being one of the surest and nearest signs of the unceasing
activity of our soul, this invisible and divine goodness ennobles, in
decisive fashion, all that it has unconsciously touched. Let him who has
a grievance against his fellow, descend into himself and seek out
whether he never has been good in the presence of that fellow.

For myself, I have never met any one by whose side I have felt my
invisible goodness bestir itself, without he has become, at that very
instant, better than myself. Be good at the depths of you, and you will
discover that those who surround you will be good even to the same
depths.

Nothing responds more infallibly to the secret cry of goodness than the
secret cry of goodness that is near.

While you are actively good in the invisible, all those who approach you
will unconsciously do things that they could not do by the side of any
other man.

Therein lies a force that has no name; a spiritual rivalry that knows no
resistance. It is as though this were the actual place where is the
sensitive spot of our soul; for there are souls that seem to have
forgotten their existence and to have renounced everything that enables
the being to rise; but, once touched here, they all draw themselves
erect; and in the divine plains of the secret goodness, the most humble
of souls cannot endure defeat.

And yet it is possible that nothing is changing in the life one sees;
but is it only that which matters, and is our existence indeed confined
to actions we can take in our hand like stones on the highroad? If you
ask yourself, as we are told we should ask every evening, "what of
immortal have I done to-day?" Is it always on the material side that we
can count, weigh and measure unerringly; is it there that you must begin
your search? It is possible for you to cause extraordinary tears to
flow; it is possible that you may fill a heart with unheard-of
certitudes, and give eternal life unto a soul, and no one shall know of
it, nor shall you even know yourself. It may be that nothing is
changing; it may be that were it put to the test all would crumble, and
that this goodness we speak of would yield to the smallest fear. It
matters not. Something divine has happened; and somewhere must our God
have smiled.

May it not be the supreme aim of life thus to bring to birth the
inexplicable within ourselves; and do we know how much we add to
ourselves when we awake something of the incomprehensible that slumbers
in every corner? Here you have awakened love which will not fall asleep
again. The soul that your soul has regarded, that has wept with you the
holy tears of the solemn joy that none may behold, will bear you no
resentment, not even in the midst of torture. It will not even feel the
need of forgiving. So convinced is it of one knows not what, that
nothing can henceforth dim or efface the smile that it wears within; for
nothing can ever separate two souls which, for an instant, "have been
good together."




SILENCE


As we advance through life, it is more and more brought home to us that
nothing takes place that is not in accord with some curious,
preconceived design: and of this we never breathe a word, we scarcely
dare to let our minds dwell upon it, but of its existence, somewhere
above our heads, we are absolutely convinced. The most fatuous of men
smiles, at the first encounters, as though he were the accomplice of the
destiny of his brethren. And in this domain, even those who can speak
the most profoundly realise--they, perhaps, more than others--that words
can never express the real, special relationship that exists between two
beings.

Were I to speak to you at this moment of the gravest things of all--of
love, death or destiny--it is not love, death or destiny that I should
touch; and, my efforts notwithstanding, there would always remain
between us a truth which had not been spoken, which we had not even
thought of speaking; and yet it is this truth only, voiceless though it
has been, which will have lived with us for an instant, and by which we
shall have been wholly absorbed. For that truth, was our truth as
regards death, destiny or love, and it was in silence only that we could
perceive it. And nothing save only the silence will have had any
importance. "My sisters," says a child in the fairy-story, "you have
each of you a secret thought--I wish to know it." We, too, have
something that people wish to know, but it is hidden far above the
secret thought--it is our secret silence.

But all questions are useless. When our spirit is alarmed, its own
agitation becomes a barrier to the second life that lives in this
secret; and, would we know what it is that lies hidden there, we must
cultivate silence among ourselves, for it is then only that for one
instant the eternal flowers unfold their petals, the mysterious flowers
whose form and colour are ever changing in harmony with the soul that is
by their side. As gold and silver are weighed in pure water, so does the
soul test its weight in silence, and the words that we let fall have no
meaning apart from the silence that wraps them round. If I tell someone
that I love him--as I may have told a hundred others--my words will
convey nothing to him; but the silence which will ensue, if I do indeed
love him, will make clear in what depths lie the roots of my love, and
will in its turn give birth to a conviction, that shall itself be
silent; and in the course of a lifetime, this silence and this
conviction will never again be the same....

Is it not silence that determines and fixes the savour of love? Deprived
of it, love would lose its eternal essence and perfume. Who has not
known those silent moments which separated the lips to reunite the
souls? It is these that we must ever seek. There is no silence more
docile than the silence of love, and it is indeed the only one that we
may claim for ourselves alone. The other great silences, those of death,
grief or destiny, do not belong to us. They come towards us at their
own hour, following in the track of events, and those whom they do not
meet need not reproach themselves. But we can all go forth to meet the
silence of love. They lie in wait for us, night and day, at our
threshold, and are no less beautiful than their brothers. And it is
thanks to them that those who have seldom wept may know the life of the
soul almost as intimately as those to whom much grief has come: and
therefore it is that such of us as have loved deeply have learnt many
secrets that are unknown to others: for thousands and thousands of
things quiver in silence on the lips of true friendship and love, that
are not to be found in the silence of other lips, to which friendship
and love are unknown....





End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Inner Beauty, by Maurice Maeterlinck

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