by the hand and lead you into a garden. Here you see no more the murky
horizon of the city, the workshops; you do not hear the din of streets,
nor that resonant rhythm that raged along in cataract on cataract; you
hear a gentle music as of a playing fountain. Passion does not project
you here to the great ecstasies of humanity and the sky; it has no will
to make you wild and fervid; it soothes you to tenderness and devotion.
The strident voice has grown soft, these colours are of transparent
crystal, this song seems to express the vast silence from which those
great passions drew their force. But these poems are not artificial.
They too are of one woof with the elements of Nature; but not with the
great, wild, and heart-moving world, not with the fiery sky, not with
thunder and tempests: it is only a garden that you surmise here, a
peaceful cottage, with birds singing about it, where there are
sweet-scented flowers and silence hanging between trees in blossom. The
adventures are insignificant in feature. You breathe the poetry of
everyday life, but not that of open and wildly surging roads--only the
poetry of closed walls, softly spoken dialogues about little things, the
tenderest secrets of home. These are the experiences of personal
existence, this is the ordinary day between the great ecstasies. The
lamp burns softly in the room, the silence is full of wonderful
tenderness:
Et l'on se dit les simples choses:
Le fruit qu'on a cueilli dans le jardin;
La fleur qui s'est ouverte,
D'entre les mousses vertes,
Et la pensée éclose, en des émois soudains,
Au souvenir d'un mot de tendresse fanée
Surpris au fond d'un vieux tiroir,
Sur un billet de l'autre année.[3]
Here you have the deepest feeling, thanks and devotion, not in ecstasy
to God and the world, but addressed to one single being. For Verhaeren
is one who is ever receiving gifts, who always feels that he is being
heaped with favours, who has always to give thanks for life and all its
miracles. Without measure, with that zest, with that incessantly renewed
joy which is the deepest secret of his art, he here again and again
expresses love and gratitude. As Orpheus rises to Euridice from the
nether world, here the sick lover ascends to the lady who has saved him
from the dark. And again and again he thanks her for the good hours of
quietness; again and again he reminds her of their first meeting, of the
sunny happiness of these present days:
Avec mes sens, avec mon cœur et mon cerveau,
Avec mon être entier tendu comme un flambeau
Vers ta bonté et vers ta charité,
Je t'aime et te louange et je te remercie
D'être venue, un jour, si simplement,
Par les chemins du dévouement,
Prendre en tes mains bienfaisantes, ma vie.[4]
These verses are genuflexions, folded hands, love that by humility
becomes religion.
But still more beautiful and significant, perhaps, is the second volume
of the trilogy _Les Heures d'Après-midi_; for here again a new thing has
been discovered, a moral beauty exceeding erotic sensation, a greatness
of feeling such as can only be conferred by the noblest experience of
life. It is a book after fifteen years of wedlock. But in this time love
has not grown poorer. _The deepest secret of Verhaeren's life, never to
let his feelings grow cold and sink to a dead level, but unceasingly to
enhance them, has denied a state of rest to his love also, and raised
even this to something eternally animated and intensified_. And so his
love has been able to celebrate the highest triumph, _vaincre
l'habitude_, to conquer monotony and the dearth of feeling. Perpetual
ecstasy has made it strong. Only he who renews his passion really lives
it. When love pauses, it passes. 'Je te regarde, et tous les jours je te
découvre.[5] Every day has here renewed the feeling and made it
independent of its beginning, independent of sensual pleasure. As in
Verhaeren's whole work, passion has here been spiritualised, ecstasy
soars beyond individual experience. It is no longer an external
appearance that the now ageing couple love in each other. Lips have
paled, the body has lost its freshness, the flesh its gloss and colour;
the years of union have written their charactery in the face. Only love
has not withered: it has grown stronger than the physical attraction; it
has defied change, because it has itself changed and incessantly been
intensified. It is now unshakeable and inalienable:
Puisque je sais que rien au monde
Ne troublera jamais notre être exalté
Et que notre âme est trop profonde
Pour que l'amour dépende encor de la beauté.[6]
The temporal has here been overcome, and even the future, even death
have no longer any terrors. Without fear of losing himself--for 'qui vit
d'amour vit d'éternité'--the lover can think of him who stands at the
end of all ways. No fear can touch him more, for he knows he is loved,
and Verhaeren has given wonderful expression to this feeling in a poem:
Vous m'avez dit, tel soir, des paroles si belles
Que sans doute les fleurs, qui se penchaient vers nous,
Soudain nous out aimés et que l'une d'entre elles,
Pour nous toucher tous deux, tomba sur nos genoux.
Vous me parliez des temps prochains où nos années,
Comme des fruits trop mûrs, se laisseraient cueillir;
Comment éclaterait le glas des destinées,
Et comme on s'aimerait en se sentant vieillir.
Votre voix m'enlaçait comme une chère étreinte,
Et votre cœur brûlait si tranquillement beau
Qu'en ce moment j'aurais pu voir s'ouvrir sans crainte
Les tortueux chemins qui vont vers le tombeau.[7]
The third volume, _Les Heures du Soir_, has wonderfully closed the
peaceful cycle with a series of poems, which no doubt have old age for
their motive, but which show no trace of lassitude in the artist. Summer
has turned to autumn, but how opulent and ripe this autumn is: the
golden fruits of memory hang down and glow in the reflection of the sun
that has been so well loved. Once again love passes with bright images:
he is changed and purified, but as masterful and as strong as on the
first day.
I love these little poems of Verhaeren's with a different and no less a
love than that I do his great and important lyric works. I have never
been able to understand why these poems--for as far as the iconoclastic
work is concerned, respect for tradition and fear of innovations may
have scared many people away--have not enjoyed a widespread popularity.
For never since the tenderly vibrating music of Verlaine's _La Bonne
Chanson_, never since the letters of the Brownings, has wedded happiness
been so marvellously celebrated as in these stanzas. Nowhere else has
love been spiritualised so nobly, with such crystal purity, nowhere else
has the synthesis of love and wedlock been more intrinsically fashioned.
It is with a quite especial love that I love these _poèmes francs et
doux_, for here behind the savage, ecstatic poet, the passionate and
strong poet of _Les Villes Tentaculaires_, another poet appears, the
simple, quiet, and modest poet, the gentle and kind poet, as we know him
in life. Here, on the other side of the poetic ecstasy, we have the
noble personality of Verhaeren, in whom we revere, not only a poetic
force, but a human perfection as well. By the luminous gate of these
frail poems goes the path to his own life.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] 'Le Paradis' (_Les Rythmes Souverains_).
[2] 'Hommage' (_Au Bord de la Route_).
[3] 'C'est la bonne heure où la lampe s'allume' (_Les Heures
d'Après-midi_).
[4] 'Avec mes sens, avec mon cœur et mon cerveau'. (_Les Heures
d'Après-midi_).
[5] 'Voici quinze ans déjà' (_Les Heures d'Après-midi_).
[6] 'Les baisers morts des défuntes années' (_Ibid._)
[7] 'Vous m'avez dit, tel soir' (_Les Heures d'Après-midi_).
THE ART OF VERHAEREN'S LIFE
Je suis d'accord avec moi-même
Et c'est assez.
É.V.
Camille Lemonnier, the master of Verhaeren's youth, the friend of his
prime, at the banquet offered by Belgium to the poet of _Toute la
Flandre,_ spoke of their thirty years' friendship, and in a powerful
speech expressed a striking idea. 'The time will come,' he said, 'when a
man, if he is to appear with any credit before his fellow-men, will have
to prove that he has been a man himself'; and then he praised Verhaeren,
showing how completely his friend fulfilled this demand of the future,
how wholly he had been a man, with the perfection of a great work of
art. For whoever would create a great work of art, must himself be a
work of art. Whoever would influence his contemporaries, not only as an
artist, but morally as well, whoever would shape and raise our life to
his own pattern, gives us the right to ask what manner of life his own
has been, what the art of his life has been.
In Verhaeren's case, there stands behind the poetic work of art the
incomparable masterpiece of a great life, a wonderful, victorious
battle for this art. For only a living humanity that had achieved
harmony, not supple, ingenious intellectuality, could have arrived at
such insight into knowledge. Verhaeren was not intrinsically a
harmonious nature; he had, therefore, to make a double effort to
transform the chaos of his feeling into a world. He was a restless and
an intemperate man who had to tame himself; all the germs of dissipation
and debauch were in his nature, all the possibilities of prodigality and
self-destruction. Only a life secure in its aims, supported on a strong
foundation, could force harmony from the conflicting inclinations he
possessed; only a great humanity could compress such heterogeneous
forces to one force. At the end and at the beginning of Verhaeren's
works, at the end and at the beginning of his life, stands the same
great soundness of health. The boy grew out of the healthy Flemish
fields and was from his birth gifted with all the advantages of a robust
race--and above all with passion. In the years of his youth he gave free
rein to this passion for intemperance; he raged himself out in all
directions; was intemperate in study, in drinking, in company, in his
sexual life--he was intemperate in his art. He strained his strength to
its uttermost limit, but he pulled himself together at the last moment,
and returned to himself and the health that was his birthright. His
harmony of to-day is not a gift of fate, but a prize won from life. At
the critical moment Verhaeren had the power to turn round, in order,
like Antæus, to recover his strength in the well of rejuvenescence of
his native province and in the calm of family life.
Earth called him back, and his native province. Poetically and humanly,
his return to Belgium signifies his deliverance, the triumph of the art
of his life. Like the ship that he sings in _La Guirlande des Dunes_,
the ship that has crossed all the seas of the world, and, though half
dashed to pieces, ever comes sailing home again to Flanders, he himself
has anchored again in the harbour whence he set sail. His poetry has
ended where it began. In his last work he has celebrated the Flanders he
sang as a youth, no longer, however, as a provincial poet, but as a
national poet. Now he has ranged the past and the future along with the
present, now he has sung Flanders too, not in individual poems, but as
an entity in one poem. 'Verhaeren élargit de son propre souffle
l'horizon de la petite patrie, et, comme le fit Balzac de son ingrate et
douce Touraine, il annexe aux plaines flamandes le beau royaume humain
de son idéalité et de son art.'[1] He has returned to his own race, to
the bosom of Nature, to the eternal resources of health and life.
And now he lives at Caillou-qui-bique, a little hamlet in the Walloon
district. Three or four houses stand there, far away from the railway,
sequestered in the wood, and yet near the fields; and of these little
houses the smallest, with few rooms and a quiet garden, is his. Here he
leads the peaceful existence which is necessary for the growth of great
work; here he holds solitary communion with Nature, undistracted by the
voices of men and the hubbub of great towns; here he dreams his cosmic
visions. He has the same healthy and simple food as the country people
around him; he goes for early morning walks across the fields, talks to
the peasants and the tradesmen of the village as though they were his
equals; they tell him of their cares and petty transactions, and he
listens to them with that unfeigned interest which he has for every form
and variety of life. As he strides across the fields his great poems
come into being, his step as it grows quicker and quicker gives them
their rhythm, the wind gives them their melody, the distance their
outlook. Any one who has been his guest there will recognise many
features of the landscape in his poems, many a cottage, many a corner,
many people, the little arts of the artisan. But how fugitive, how small
everything appears there, everything that in the poem, thanks to the
fire of the vision, is glowing, strong, and radiant with the promise of
eternity! Verhaeren lives in his Walloon home in the autumn, but in
spring and early summer he flees from his illness to the sea--flees from
hay-fever. This illness of Verhaeren's has always seemed to me
symbolical of his art and of his vital feeling, for it is, if I may say
so, an elemental illness that, when pollen flies along the breeze, when
spring lies out in sultry heat across the fields, a man's eyes should be
filled with tears, his senses irritated, and his head oppressed. This
suffering with Nature, this feeling in oneself of the pain which goes
before the spring, this torment of the breaking forth of sap, of
pressure in the air, has always appeared to me a symbol of the elemental
and physical way that Verhaeren feels Nature. For it is as though
Nature, which gives him all ecstasies, all its own dark secrets, gives
him its own pain as well, as though its web reached into his blood, his
nerves, as though the identity between the poet and the world had here
attained a higher degree than in other men. In these painful first days
of spring he flees to the sea, whose singing winds and sounding waves he
loves. There he works rarely, for the restlessness of the sea makes him
restless himself; it gives him only dreams, no works.
But Verhaeren is no longer a primitive spirit. He is attached by too
many bonds to his contemporaries, too much in contact with all modern
striving and creation, to be able to confine himself wholly to a rural
existence. There is in him that wonderful double harmony of modern men
which lives in brotherly communion with Nature and yet clings to
Nature's supreme flower of culture. During the winter Verhaeren lives in
Paris, the most alive of all cities; for, though quiet is an inner need
of his, he looks on the unrest and noise of great cities as a precious
stimulant. Here he receives those impressions of noisy life which,
remembered in tranquillity, become poems. He loves to drift in the
many-voiced confusion of teeming streets, to receive inspiration from
pictures, books, and men. For years, in intimate cohesion with all that
is coming into existence and growing in strength, he has followed the
most delicate stirrings of the evolution of art, here too in the
happiest manner combining detachment with sympathy. For he does not live
really in Paris itself, but in Saint-Cloud, in a little flat which is
full of pictures and books, and usually of good friends as well. For
friendship, living, cheerful comradeship, has always been a necessity of
life to him, to him who has the faculty of giving himself so
whole-heartedly in friendship; and there is hardly one among the poets
of to-day who has so many friends, and so many of the best. Rodin,
Maeterlinck, Gide, Mockel, Vielé-Griffin, Signac, Rysselberghe, Rilke,
Romain Rolland, all these, who have done great things for our time, are
his close friends. With associates of this stamp he passes his life at
Paris, carefully avoiding what is called society, aloof from the salons
where fame is cultured and the transactions of art are negotiated. His
innermost being is simplicity. And all his life long this modesty has
made him indifferent to financial success, because he has never desired
to rise above the primitive necessities of his life, never known the
longing to dazzle and to be envied. While others, goaded by the success
of their acquaintances, have been thrown off their balance and have
worked themselves to death in fever, he has gone on his way calm and
unheeding. He has worked, and let his work grow slowly and organically.
And thus fame, which slowly but with irresistible sureness has grown to
his stature, has not disturbed him. It is a pleasure to see how he has
stood this last and greatest test, how he shoulders his fame stoutly,
with joy but without pride. To-day Belgium celebrates in him her
greatest poet. In France, where he was held an alien, he has forced
esteem. The greatest good has been done, however, by the fact that from
foreign races, from the whole of Europe and beyond it, from America, an
answer has come to his great reputation, that the little enmities of the
nations have called a halt before his work, and above all that it is the
younger generation who are to-day enlisted under the banner of his
enthusiasm. Inexhaustible has been his interest in young men; perhaps he
has welcomed and encouraged every beginner with only too much kindness.
For his delight in the art of others is inexhaustible; his infinite
feeling of identity makes him in the highest sense impartial and
enthusiastic, and it is a delight to see him stand in front of great
works and to learn enthusiasm from him.
This apparent contrast between the art of his poetry and the art of his
life is at first strange and surprising. For behind so passionate a poet
one would never suspect so quiet and kind a man. Only his face--which
has already allured so many painters and sculptors--speaks of passions
and ecstasies; that brow across which, under locks growing grey, the
deep lines graven by the crisis of his youth run like the furrows of a
field. The pendent moustache (like that of Nietzsche) lends his face
power and earnestness. The salient cheek-bones and sharply chiselled
lines betray his peasant extraction, which is perhaps still more
strongly accentuated by his gait, that hard, strikingly rhythmical,
bowed gait which reminds one of the plougher treading in hard toil and
in a bent posture over newly turned turf, his gait whose rhythm reminds
one again and again of his poetry. But goodness shines in his eyes,
which--_couleur de mer_--as though new-born after all the lassitude of
the years of fever, are bright and fresh with life; there is goodness,
too, in the hearty spontaneity of his gestures. In his face the first
impression is strength; the second, that this strength is tempered with
kindness. Like every noble face, it is, when translated into sculpture,
the idea of his life.
Some day many people will speak of Verhaeren's art; many love it to-day
already. But I believe that nobody will be able to love the poet in the
same degree as many to-day love the art of his life, this unique
personality, as people love something that can be lost and never
restored. If one at first seems to find a discord between the modesty,
gentleness, and heartiness of his humanity, and the wildness, heroism,
and hardness of his art, one at last discovers their _unity in
experience, in feeling_. When one closes the door after a conversation
with him, or one of his books after the last page, the prevailing
impression is the same: enhanced joy in life, enthusiasm, confidence in
the world, an intensified feeling of pleasure which shows life in purer,
kindlier, and more magnificent forms. This idealising effect of life
goes out equally strong from his person and from his work; every sort of
contact with him, with the poet, with the man, seems to enrich life, and
teaches one to apply to him in his turn the appreciation he always so
readily had for all the gifts of life--gratitude ever renewed and
boundlessly intensified in passion.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Vielé-Griffin, biographical note to Mockel's _Verhaeren._
THE EUROPEAN IMPORTANCE OF HIS WORK
Futur, vous m'exaltez comme autrefois mon Dieu!
É.V., 'La Prière.'
The last force of everybody, the force which finally decides the effect,
which alone and first of all is able to strain his work or his activity
to the highest possibility, is the feeling of responsibility. To be
responsible, and to feel that one is responsible, is equivalent to
looking at one's whole life as a vast debt, which one is bound to strive
with all one's strength to pay off; is equivalent to surveying one's
momentary task on earth in the whole range of its significance,
importance, and periphery, in order then to raise one's own inherent
possibilities and capacities to their most complete mastery. For most
people this earthly task is outwardly restricted in an office, in a
profession, in the fixed round of some activity. With an artist, on the
other hand, it is what one might call an infinite dimension which can
never be attained; his task is therefore an unlimited, an eternal
longing, a longing that never weakens. Since his duty can really only be
to express himself with the greatest possible perfection, this
responsibility coincides with the demand that he should bring his life,
and with his life his talent, to the highest perfection, that he should,
in Goethe's sense, 'expand his narrow existence to eternity.' The artist
is responsible for his talent, because it is his task to express it. Now
the higher the idea of art is understood, the more art feels its task to
be the task of bringing the life of the universe into harmony, so much
the more must the feeling of responsibility be intensified in a creative
mind.
Now, of all the poets of our day Verhaeren is the one who has felt this
feeling of responsibility most strongly. To write poetry is for him to
express not himself only, but the striving and straining of the whole
period as well, the fearful torment and the happiness that are in the
birth of the new things. Just because his work comprises all the present
and aims at expressing it in its entity, he feels himself responsible to
the future. For him a true poet must visualise the whole psychic care of
his time. For when later generations--in the same manner as they will
question monuments concerning our art, pictures concerning our painters,
social forms concerning our philosophers--ask of the verses and the
works of our contemporaries the question, What was your hope, your
feeling, the sum of your interpretation? how did you feel cities and
men, things and gods?--shall we be able to answer them? This is the
inner question of Verhaeren's artistic responsibility. _And this
feeling of responsibility has made his work great_. Most of the poets of
our day have been unconcerned with reality. Some of them strike up a
dancing measure, rouse and amuse people lounging in theatres; others
again tell of their own sorrow, ask for pity and compassion, they who
have never felt for others. Verhaeren, however, heedless of the approval
or disapproval of our time, turns his face towards the generations to
be:
Celui qui me lira dans les siècles, un soir,
Troublant mes vers, sous leur sommeil ou sous leur cendre,
Et ranimant leur sens lointain pour mieux comprendre
Comment ceux d'aujourd'hui s'étaient armés d'espoir,
Qu'il sache, avec quel violent élan, ma joie
S'est, à travers les cris, les révoltes, les pleurs,
Ruée au combat fier et mâle des douleurs,
Pour en tirer l'amour, comme on conquiert sa proie.[1]
It was, in the last instance, this magnificent feeling of responsibility
which did not permit him to pass by any manifestation of our present
time without observing and appreciating it, for he knows that later
generations will ask the question how we sensed the new thing, which to
them is a possession and a matter of course, when it was still strange
and almost hostile. His work is the answer. The true poet of to-day, in
Verhaeren's eyes, must show forth the torment and the trouble of the
whole psychic transition, the painful discovery of the new beauty in the
new things, the revolt, the crisis, the struggles it costs to
understand all this, to adapt ourselves to it, and in the end to love
it. Verhaeren has attempted to express our whole time in its earthly,
its material, its psychic form. His verses lyrically represent Europe at
the turning of the century, us and our time; they consciously
contemplate the whole circuit of the things of life: _they write a lyric
encyclopædia of our time, the intellectual atmosphere of Europe at the
turning of the twentieth century._
The whole of Europe speaks with his voice, speaks with a voice that
reaches beyond our time; and already from the whole of Europe comes the
answer. In Belgium Verhaeren is above all the national poet, the poet of
heaths, cities, dunes, and of the Flemish past, the great renewer of the
national pride. But he stands too near his fellow-countrymen to be
measured at his full height there. And in France, too, very few
appreciate him at his true value. Most people regard him there in his
literary aspect only and as a symbolist and decadent, an innovator of
verse, an audacious and gifted revolutionary. But very few perceive the
new and important work that is built up in his verses, very few
comprehend the entity and the logical character of his cosmic
philosophy. Nevertheless, his influence is already tangible. The new
rhythm he has created can be recognised in many poets; and such a gifted
disciple as Jules Romains has even brought his idea of the feeling of
cities to new impressiveness. Best of all, however, he is understood by
those Frenchmen who stand in a mystic communion with all that is great
and urgent abroad; who feel an ethical need, a longing for an inner
transmutation of values, for a re-moulding of races, for cosmopolitanism
and a union of the nations; so, above all, Léon Bazalgette, who revealed
Walt Whitman, the prophet of all strong and conscious reality in art, to
France. Most joyfully of all, however, the answer rings from those
countries which are themselves involved in deep-seated social and
ethical crises, those countries where the need of religion is a vital
instinct, which are eternally hungry for God, above all from Russia and
Germany. In Russia the poet of _Les Villes Tentaculaires_ is celebrated
as he is nowhere else. As the poet of social innovations he is read in
the Russian universities, and in the circles of the intellectuals he is
regarded as the spiritual pioneer of our time. Brjussow, the
distinguished young poet, has translated him, and afforded him the
possibility of popularity. In other Slavonic countries, too, his work is
beginning to spread.
Verhaeren's success, one may well say triumph, has been strongest and
most impressive in Germany; here it has been unexpectedly intensive even
to us who have worked for it. A few years have sufficed to make him as
popular here I as any native poet, and the most beautiful feature of
his success is this, that people are already forgetting to look upon him
as a foreigner. Verhaeren is to-day part and parcel of German culture;
and much of our contemporary lyric poetry, its welcome turning to
optimism for example, would be unthinkable but for his work and
influence. Countless are the essays devoted to him, the recitations in
which our best elocutionists--Kainz, Moissi, Kayssler, Heine, Wiecke,
Durieux, Rosen, Gregori--have taken part; none of these interpreters,
however, were as enthusiastically applauded as was Verhaeren himself on
his _tournée_ in Germany, which was a great experience no less for him
than for our public, because he gladly felt that his work was now rooted
for ever in German soil. In Scandinavia, where Johannes V. Jensen in his
essays unconsciously transcribed Verhaeren's lyric work, Ellen Key, the
inspired prophetess of the feeling of life, has hailed him as she has
hailed no other, and Georg Brandes, who crowns poets, has welcomed him
with loud acclaim. Incessantly, in an irresistible, sure ascent,
Verhaeren's fame grows. And above all, his poetry is no longer regarded
as an individual thing, but as a work, as a cosmic philosophy, as an
answer to the questions of our time, as the strongest and most beautiful
enrichment of our vital feeling. Wherever people are tired of pessimism,
tired of confused mysticism, and tired of monistic shallowness; wherever
a longing stirs for a pure idealistic form of contemplation, for a new
reconciliation between our new realities and the old reverence for
eternal secrets, for the secularisation of the divine, his name stands
in the front rank. An answer comes from every direction, not because his
work was a question, but because it was in itself an answer to the
unconscious demand for a new community, a demand which is being made by
men of all nations everywhere to-day.
But all this is only a beginning. Works like his, which are not
paradoxical enough, not dazzling enough, to produce sudden ecstasies and
literary fashions; which, by the mere fact that they have themselves
grown organically into existence, can only grow organically, but for
that reason irresistibly, in their influence; only lay hold of the
masses slowly. Only later generations will enjoy the fruit which we,
with renewed admiration, have seen ripening from the most modest of
blossoms. But already a ring of men of all nations are joining hands, a
ring of men who perceive a new centre of spirituality in Verhaeren. And
we, the few who have wholly surrendered ourselves to his work, must
appreciate it with that feeling only which he himself has taught us as
the highest feeling of life--with enthusiasm, with gratitude ever
renewed, and with joyful admiration. For to whom in our days should one
offer more abundantly and stormily this new vital doctrine of enthusiasm
as the happiest feeling than to Verhaeren, to him who was the first to
wrest it in the bitterest struggles from the depths of our time, who was
the first to shape it in the material of art, the first to raise it to
the eternal law of life?
FOOTNOTES:
[1] 'Un Soir' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
I. LES FLAMANDES, poèmes. Bruxelles, Hochsteyn, 1883. LES CONTES DE
MINUIT, prose. Bruxelles (Collection de la 'Jeune Belgique'), Franck,
1885.
JOSEPH HEYMANS, PEINTRE, critique. Bruxelles (_Société Nouvelle_), 1885.
II. LES MOINES, poèmes. Paris, Lemerre, 1886.
FERNAND KHNOPFF, critique. Bruxelles (_Société Nouvelle_), 1886.
III. Au BORD DE LA ROUTE, poèmes. Liège (_La Wallonie_), 1891.
IV. LES SOIRS, poèmes. Bruxelles, Deman, 1887.
V. LES DÉBÂCLES, poèmes. Bruxelles, Deman, 1888.
VI. LES FLAMBEAUX NOIRS, poèmes. Bruxelles, Deman, 1890.
VII. LES VILLAGES ILLUSOIRES, poèmes, illustrés par Georges Minne.
Bruxelles, Deman, 1895.
VIII. LES APPARUS DANS MES CHEMINS, poèmes. Bruxelles, Lacomblez, 1891.
LES CAMPAGNES HALLUCINÉES, poèmes, ornementés par T. van Rysselberghe.
Bruxelles, Deman, 1893.
ALMANACH, poèmes, illustrés par T. van Rysselberghe. Bruxelles,
Dietrich, 1895.
POÈMES (1e série, i., ii., iii.). Paris, Mercure de France, 1895.
LES VILLES TENTACULAIRES, poèmes, couverture et ornementation par T. van
Rysselberghe. Bruxelles, Deman, 1896.
POÈMES (2e série, iv., v., vi.). Paris, Mercure de France, 1896.
LES HEURES CLAIRES, poèmes, ornementés par T. van Rysselberghe.
Bruxelles, Deman, 1896.
ÉMILE VERHAEREN, 1883-1896, portrait par T. van Rysselberghe.
[Bruxelles, Deman, 1896.] (An anthology, 'pour les amis du poète,')
LES AUBES, drame lyrique en 4 actes, ornementé par T. van Rysselberghe.
Bruxelles, Deman, 1898.
ESPAÇA NEGRA, NOTAS DE VIAJE. Barcelona, Pedro Ortega, 1899.
LES VISAGES DE LA VIE, poèmes, ornementés par T. van Rysselberghe.
Bruxelles, Deman, 1899.
POÈMES (3e série, vii., viii., _Les Vignes de ma Muraille_). Paris,
Mercure de France, 1899.
LE CLOÎTRE, drame en 4 actes, prose et vers, ornementé par T. van
Rysselberghe. Bruxelles, Deman, 1900.
PETITES LÉGENDES, poèmes. Bruxelles, Deman, 1900.
LES PETITS VIEUX. London, Hacon & Ricketts, 1901.
PHILIPPE H., tragédie en 3 actes, vers et prose. Paris, Mercure de
France, 1901.
LES FORCES TUMULTUEUSES, poèmes. Paris, Mercure de France, 1902.
LES VILLES TENTACULAIRES, précédées des _Campagnes Hallucinées,_ poèmes.
Paris, Mercure de France, 1904.
TOUTE LA FLANDRE: _Les Tendresses Premières_, poèmes. Bruxelles, Deman,
1904.
LES HEURES D'APRÈS-MIDI, poèmes. Bruxelles, Deman, 1905.
REMBRANDT, étude. Paris, Henri Laurens [1905].
IMAGES JAPONAISES, texte d'É. V ..., illustrations de Kwassou. Tokio,
1906.
LA MULTIPLE SPLENDEUR, poèmes. Paris, Mercure de France, 1906.
TOUTE LA FLANDRE: _La Guirlande des Dunes_, poèmes. Bruxelles, Deman,
1907.
LES LETTRES FRANÇAISES EN BELGIQUE. Bruxelles, Lamertin, 1907.
LES VISAGES DE LA VIE (_Les Visages de la Vie, Les douze Mois_), poèmes,
nouvelle édition. Paris, Mercure de France, 1908.
TOUTE LA FLANDRE: _Les Héros_. Bruxelles, Deman, 1908.
JAMES ENSOR, étude. Bruxelles, E. van Oest, 1908.
TOUTE LA FLANDRE: _Les Villes à Pignons_. Bruxelles, Deman, 1909.
HELENAS HEIMKEHR. Leipzig, Insel-Verlag, 1909. (Translation by Stefan
Zweig of _Hélène de Sparte_.)
DEUX DRAMES: LE CLOÎTRE, PHILIPPE II. Paris, Mercure de France, 1909.
LES RYTHMES SOUVERAINS, poèmes. Paris, Mercure de France, 1910.
PIERRE-PAUL RUBENS. Brussels, G. van Oest & Cie., 1910.
LES HEURES DU SOIR. Leipzig, Insel-Verlag, 1911.
HÉLÈNE DE SPARTE, tragédie en 4 actes. Paris, 'Nouvelle Revue
Française,' 1912.
TOUTE LA FLANDRE: _Les Plaines_. Bruxelles, Deman, 1911.
LES BLÉS MOUVANTS, poèmes. Paris, Crès, 1912.
LES VILLAGES ILLUSOIRES, avec 15 gravures à l'eau forte par Henry Ramah.
Leipzig, Insel-Verlag, 1913.
RUBENS. Leipzig, Insel-Verlag, 1913.
LES BLÉS MOUVANTS, poèmes. Paris, Mercure de France, 1913.
ŒUVRES D'ÉMILE VERHAEREN (IV., V., VI., VII., VIII., _Les Vignes de
ma Muraille_). Paris, Mercure de France, 1914.
TRANSLATIONS INTO ENGLISH
THE DAWN (_Les Aubes_), by Émile Verhaeren, translated by Arthur Symons.
London, Duckworth, 1898.
POEMS BY ÉMILE VERHAEREN, selected and rendered into English by Alma
Strettel. London, John Lane, 1899.
CONTEMPORARY BELGIAN POETRY, selected and translated by Jethro Bithell.
('Canterbury Poets' series.) London, Walter Scott, 1911. (60 pp. are
translations of Verhaeren's poems.)
CRITICISMS
BOOKS
Bazalgette, Léon: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. Paris, Sansot, 1907. (One of the
series 'Les Célébrités d'aujourd'hui.')
Beaunier, André: LA POÉSIE NOUVELLE. Paris, Mercure de France, 1902.
Bersaucourt, Albert de: CONFÉRENCE SUR ÉMILE VERHAEREN. Paris, Jouve,
1908.
Bever, Ad. van, et Paul Léautaud: POÈTES D'AUJOURD'HUI, nouvelle
édition, tome 2. Paris, Mercure de France, 1909.
Boer, Julius de: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. [1907.] (One of the series 'Mannen en
Vrouwen van beteekenis in onze dagen.')
Bosch, Firmin van den: IMPRESSIONS DE LITTÉRATURE CONTEMPORAINE.
Bruxelles, Vromant et Cie., 1905.
Buisseret, Georges: L'ÉVOLUTION IDÉOLOGIQUE D'ÉMILE VERHAEREN. Paris,
Mercure de France, 1910. (One of the series 'Les Hommes et les Idées.')
Casier, Jean: LES 'MOINES' D'ÉMILE VERHAEREN. Gand, Leliaert et Siffer,
1887.
Crawford, Virginia M.: STUDIES IN FOREIGN LITERATURE. London, Duckworth,
1899.
Florian-Parmentier: TOUTES LES LYRES. Anthologie Critique ornée de
dessins et de portraits, nouvelle série. Paris, Gastein-Serge, [1911].
Gauchez, Maurice: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. Bruxelles, éditions du 'Thyrse,'
1908.
Gilbert, Eugène: FRANCE ET BELGIQUE. Paris, Pion, Nourrit et Cie, 1905.
Gosse, Edmund: FRENCH PROFILES. London, Heinemann, 1905.
Gourmont, Remy de: LE LIVRE DES MASQUES. Paris, Mercure de France, 1896.
Gourmont, Remy de: PROMENADES LITTÉRAIRES. Paris, Mercure de France,
1904.
Guilbeaux, Henri: É. VERHAEREN. Verviers, Wauthy, 1908.
Hamel, A. G. van: HET LETTERKUNDIG LEVEN VAN FRANKRIJK. Amsterdam, van
Kampen & Zoon [1907].
Hauser, Otto: DIE BELGISCHE LYRIK VON 1880-1900. Grossenhain, Baumert
und Ronge, 1902.
Heumann, Albert: LE MOUVEMENT LITTÉRAIRE BELGE D'EXPRESSION FRANÇAISE
DEPUIS 1880. Paris, Mercure de France, 1913.
Horrent, Désiré: ÉCRIVAINS BELGES D'AUJOURD'HUI. Bruxelles, Lacomblez,
1904.
Key, Ellen: SEELEN UND WERKE. Berlin, S. Fischer, 1911.
Kinon, Victor: PORTRAITS D'AUTEURS. Bruxelles, Dechenne, 1910.
Le Cardonnel, Georges, et Charles Vellay: LA LITTÉRATURE CONTEMPORAINE,
1905. Paris, Mercure de France, 1906.
Lemonnier, Camille: LA VIE BELGE. Paris, Fasquelle, 1905.
Mercereau, Alexandre: LA LITTÉRATURE ET LES IDÉES NOUVELLES. Paris,
Figuière, and London, Stephen Swift, 1912.
Mockel, Albert: ÉMILE VERHAEREN, avec une note biographique par F.
Vielé-Griffin. Paris, Mercure de France, 1895.
Nouhuys, W.G. van: VAN OVER DE GRENSEN, STUDIËN EN CRITIEKEN. Baarn,
Hollandia Drukkerij, 1906.
Oppeln-Bronikowski, F. von: DAS JUNGE FRANKREICH. Berlin, Oesterheld und
Co., 1908.
Ramaekers, Georges: É. VERHAEREN. Bruxelles, éditions de 'La Lutte,'
1900.
Rency, Georges: PHYSIONOMIES LITTÉRAIRES. Bruxelles, Dechenne et Cie,
1907.
Rimestad, Christian: FRANSK POESI I DET NITTENDE AARHUNDREDE.
Kjøbenhavn, Det Schubotheske, 1906.
Schellenberg, E.A.: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. Leipzig, Xenien-Verlag, 1911.
Schlaf, Johannes: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. Berlin, Schuster und Loeffler,
[1905].
Smet, Abbé Jos. de: ÉMILE VERHAEREN, SA VIE ET SES ŒUVRES. Malines,
1909.
Tellier, Jules: Nos POÈTES. Paris, Despret, 1888.
Thompson, Vance: FRENCH PORTRAITS. Boston, Badger & Co., 1900.
Vigié-Lecoq, E.: LA POÉSIE CONTEMPORAINE, 1884-1896. Paris, Mercure de
France, 1897.
Visan, Tancrède de: L'ATTITUDE DU LYRISME CONTEMPORAIN. Paris, Mercure
de France, 1911.
Zweig, Stefan: PREFACE TO ÉMILE VERHAERENS AUSGEWÄHLTE GEDICHTE IN
NACHDICHTUNG. Berlin, Schuster und Loeffler, 1903.
PERIODICALS
Brandes, Georg: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. _Politiken_, Copenhagen, 8th June 1903.
Brandes, Georg: ÉMILE VERHAEREN ALS DRAMATIKER. _Die Schaubühne_,
Berlin, 5th April 1906.
Edwards, Osman: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. _The Savoy_, November 1897.
Fontainas, André: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. _L'Art Moderne_, Brussels, 23rd
February 1902.
Fresnois, André du: LETTRE DE PARIS, HÉLÈNE DE SPARTE. _La Vie
Intellectuelle_, Brussels, May 1912.
Gosse, Edmund: M. VERHAEREN'S NEW POEMS (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_).
_Daily Chronicle_, 17th February 1902.
Gosse, Edmund: M. VERHAEREN'S NEW POEMS (_Les Blés Mouvants_). _New
Weekly_,18th April 1914.
Gourmont, Jean de: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. _Les Marges_, Paris, March 1914.
Krains, Hubert: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. _Société Nouvelle_, Brussels, June
1895.
Mauclair, Camille: TROIS POÈTES. _Revue Encyclopédique_, Paris, 25th
April 1896.
Maurras, Charles: LITTÉRATURE. _Revue Encyclopédique_, Paris, 23rd
January 1897.
Polak, Emile: ÉMILE VERHAEREN EN RUSSIE. _La Vie Intellectuelle,_
Brussels, January 1914.
Reboul, Jacques: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. _L'Olivier_, Paris, 15th February
1914.
Régnier, Henri de: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. _Revue Blanche_, Paris, March 1895.
Rodrigue, G.M.: HÉLÈNE DE SPARTE. _Le Thyrse_, Brussels, July 1912.
Sadler, Michael T.H.: ÉMILE VERHAEREN: AN APPRECIATION. _Poetry and
Drama_, June 1913.
Sautreau, Georges: L'ŒUVRE LYRIQUE D'ÉMILE VERHAEREN. _Revue
Scandinave_, Paris, December 1911--January 1912.
Speth, William: L'INSPIRATION DE VERHAEREN ET LES COLORISTES FLAMANDS.
_La Vie des Lettres_, Paris, January 1914.
Vielé-Griffin, Francis: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. _La Plume_, Paris,
25th April 1896. Vielé-Griffin, Francis: ÉMILE VERHAEREN. _Mercure de
France_, Paris, 15th March 1914.
INDEX
ACTORS, 131, 133, 174-175.
Admiration, 12, 29, 30, 46, 50,
101, 172, 183, 217 ff., 259.
Aeroplanes, 4, 164, 209.
Æsthetics, 10, 85, 94, 115, 116,
151, 205.
Africa, 114.
Agrarianism, 9, 101, 187.
'À la Gloire du Vent,' 200.
Alcohol, 15.
Alexandrine, the, 32, 41, 48, 74,
144, 147 ff., 163, 170.
_Almanack_, 197.
_Also Sprach Zarathustra_,134.
America, 15, 24, 108, 113, 115,
120, 131-132, 135, 231, 250.
Artisans, 16, 131, 194, 211, 235,
247.
Asceticism, 16, 43, 162, 168.
_Au Bord de la Route_, 57-60, 62,
63, 68, 111, 149, 236.
'Au Bord du Quai,' 202.
Auerbach, Berthold, 38.
'Aujourd'hui,' 4.
'Autour de ma Maison,' 217, 226.
'Aux Moines,' 43, 49, 51.
BAKST, LÉON, 174.
Ballads, old German, 146, 159.
Balzac, Honoré de, 246.
Banville, Théodore de, 143.
Baudelaire, Charles, 59, 120, 142.
Bayreuth, 92.
Bazalgette, Léon, 232, 238, 257.
Beauty, 37-38, 45, 49-52, 83,
96 ff., 104, 199, 206, 207, 221,
230, 231, 240.
--, the new, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 83,
96 ff., 100, 104, 105, 170-172,
222, 255.
_Béguinages_, 22, 44.
Belfries, 39, 50, 157.
Belgian art, 21-22, 45.
--life, 45.
--literature, 19, 25-26, 37-38.
--race, the, 17 ff., 23-24.
Belgium, 13 ff., 256.
Berlin, 87, 91, 113.
Bersaucourt, Albert de, 135.
Bornhem, 45.
Brandes, Georg, 258.
Breughel, 40.
Brezina, Otokar, 207.
Brjussow, Valerius, 257.
Brownings, the, 243.
Bruges, 21, 39, 43.
Brussels, 14, 32, 93.
CAILLOU-QUI-BIQUE, 30, 246.
Carducci, Giosuè, 187, 193.
Carlyle, Thomas, 86.
'Celle des Voyages,' 141.
'Celui de la Fatigue,' 66.
'Celui du Savoir,' 76.
Chance, 104, 110, 111, 204, 212.
'Charles le Téméraire,' 13.
Charles v., 25.
Chiaroscuro, 46, 190.
Chimay, 46.
Christ, 68, 70, 184, 211.
Christianity, 49, 51.
Cities, 3, 4, 6, 9, 13-14, 29-30,
55, 75-77, 83, 89 ff., 94 ff.,
101 ff., 107, 109, 111-113, 116-118,
125-126, 131, 140, 165-167,
181, 191, 197, 222, 231, 238,
247, 249, 257.
Classicism, 7, 52, 82, 84, 100,
160, 162, 172, 190.
Claus, Émile, 22.
Cloisters, 9, 22, 25, 26, 43-46, 147,
165-166.
Colmar, 92.
Comédie Française, the, 149.
Concentration, 188, 194.
Congo, the, 17.
Conservatives, the, 104.
Contemporary feeling, 5 ff., 81-90,
101 ff., 112, 115, 118, 148,
182, 234, 248, 254 ff.
Coppée, François, 143.
_Cosmic Enthusiasm_, 220.
Cosmic feeling, 8, 69-70, 74-75,
81 ff., 112-113, 126, 134, 152,
179-185, 186, 188, 192, 198 ff.,
219, 226, 228, 231, 256, 258.
--law, 198, 202-203.
--pain, 68.
Cosmopolitanism, 22, 257.
Cosmos, the, 8.
Coster, Charles de, 19, 23, 167,
168.
Country, the, 9, 15, 26, 29, 30,
101 ff., 107, 245, 247, 248.
Courtrai, 21.
Criticism, 33-34, 187, 218.
Crommelynck, Fernand, 22.
Crowd, the, 104 ff., 117, 118, 121,
122, 125-127, 129, 130, 132,
134-136, 139, 140, 148, 152.
DAVID, GERHARD, 43.
Death, 60, 61, 63, 65, 69, 242.
Decadence, 18.
Decadents, the, 143, 256.
Declamation (_see_ Recitation).
Defregger, Franz, 38.
Dehmel, Richard, 75-76, 187, 191,
229, 234.
Deman, Edmond, 32.
Democracy, 9, 77, 81 ff., 108, 109,
111, 114, 197, 206.
Demolder, Eugène, 22.
Déroulède, Paul, 135.
Deutsches Volkstheater, Vienna, 174.
Dialogue, 129.
Disease, 55 ff., 102, 204, 209.
Dithyramb, the, 73, 161.
Divinity (_see_ God).
Dixmude, 44.
Dostoieffsky, F.M., 63, 166.
Drama, the, 150, 151, 161 ff.,
194, 235.
Dyck, Ernest van, 32.
_Ecce Homo!_ 63, 66, 85-86, 119,
218.
Ecstasy, 24, 61, 66, 75, 76, 82,
89, 90, 92, 94, 121, 128, 133,
136, 137, 139, 152, 165-167,
169, 173, 183, 184, 187, 189,
209, 213, 216, 217, 220, 221,
223, 225-229, 231, 232, 234,
235, 237-239, 241, 243, 248,
251, 259.
Edwards, Osman, 174.
Eekhoud, Georges, 22.
Egoism (_see_ Selfishness).
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 140.
Emigrants, 9, 102-103, 187.
Energy, 50, 88 ff., 92, 95, 96, 99,
105, 111, 114, 116, 117, 121,
132, 182, 198, 199, 218, 221,
223.
Engineering, 4, 5, 9, 82.
England, 13, 55, 63, 64, 90, 92,
108, 113, 114.
Enthusiasm, 12, 30, 89, 111, 132,
138, 153, 161-164, 168, 172-174,
179, 183, 184, 187, 188, 193,
194, 198, 207, 209, 210, 215 ff,
220-222, 225-227, 232, 234,
250, 252, 259.
Epic, the, 19, 23, 150, 151, 161.
Eroticism, 167,172-173, 234, 235,
237, 240.
Ethics, 6, 115, 182, 183, 187,
206, 215 ff., 216.
Europe, 9, 13, 20, 23, 101, 114,
201, 231, 250, 253 ff.
European consciousness, 114.
--feeling, 22.
--race, the, 114-115.
--the New, 9.
Evolution, 3 ff., 10, 82, 105, 142,
180, 195-197, 213, 216, 218,
229, 249.
Excess, 15, 16, 24, 31, 40-41, 44,
61, 121, 139, 232, 245.
Exchanges, 90, 98, 99, 155.
Exultation, 24, 44, 91, 130, 133.
Eycks, van, the, 43.
FACTORIES, 89, 97, 100, 102, 155.
Faith, 31, 44, 46, 50, 67, 69, 95,
104, 167, 184, 196, 208-210,
212, 227.
Fate, 62, 203, 212, 213.
Faust, 72, 209.
Fellowship, 73, 76, 94, 223, 227, 249.
Fervour (_see_ Enthusiasm).
Flanders, 15, 19, 22, 23, 27, 30,
33, 36, 39, 40, 43, 44, 46, 51,
168, 197, 246, 246, 256.
Flemings, the, 14, 15, 43.
Flemish language, the, 154, 155.
'Fleur Fatale,' 63, 65.
Florence, 52, 92, 191.
Force, 232, 253.
Forth Bridge, the, 87.
France, 13, 22, 134, 250, 256.
Future, the, 8, 10, 14, 36, 51, 53,
89, 104, 115, 167, 180, 182, 201,
204, 211, 227, 231, 232, 244,
246, 253-255.
GAIETY THEATRE, Manchester, 174.
Gauchez, Maurice, 154.
Genius, men of, 18.
Genre-pictures, 40.
George, Stefan, 187.
Germany, 19, 55, 91, 92, 174, 257, 258.
Ghent, 25, 213.
Gide, Andre', 249.
Glesener, Edmond, 22.
God, 6, 7, 47-48, 68, 95, 104, 105,
109-111, 165, 182, 184, 185,
199, 203-205, 208, 210, 212-215,
222, 259.
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, 70,
71, 72,139, 158, 160, 193, 197,
254.
Goodness, 72, 251.
Gothic art, 45.
Greece, 82, 86, 165.
Greeks, the, 52, 84, 172, 190.
Grünewald, Mathias, 92.
Gueux, the, 20,
'Guillaume de Juliers,' 228.
Guyau, Jean-Marie, 8.
HAMBURG, 92.
Handiwork, 28, 82, 86, 93, 211.
Harmony, 23, 36, 70, 84, 85, 118,
125, 127, 130, 146, 149, 160,
167, 169, 170, 181, 183, 184,
213, 216, 245, 254.
Hay fever, 29, 247-248.
Health, 16-18, 67, 72, 73, 231,
245, 246, 251.
_Hélène de Sparte_,162, 165, 169-172,
174-175.
Heymans, Joseph, 22.
Holland, 13.
Homer, 128.
'Hommage,' 236.
Horniman, Miss, 174.
Hugo, Victor, 10-11, 32, 120, 134-135,
138, 142-143, 145, 147, 160.
Humility, 221, 233, 240.
Huysmans, Joris Karl, 22.
IDENTITY, 8, 77, 96, 126, 184, 205,
223, 225, 228, 230, 248, 250.
Iliad, the, 19.
Impressionists, the, 9, 86, 222, 249.
India, 109, 114.
Individual, the, 110, 111, 118.
Industrialism, 9, 77, 81 ff., 101,
125, 131, 187, 205-206.
Inquisition, the, 16, 169.
'Insatiablement,' 61.
Instinct, 98, 100, 113, 229, 236.
Intemperance (_see_ Excess).
Intensification, 20, 24, 30, 49, 64,
66, 131, 137, 152, 162, 164, 190,
200-202, 207, 220, 225, 229,
241, 252, 254.
Intoxication, 20, 22, 24, 64, 91,
189, 199, 232.
Italy, 13, 86, 92, 108, 114, 191.
JENSEN, JOHANNES V., 258.
Jesuits, the, 25-26.
Jesus, 68, 70.
Jordaens, Jakob, 15, 40, 41.
Joy, 61, 66, 74, 106, 133, 184, 214,
217, 228, 230-233, 240.
KAHN, GUSTAVE, 144.
Kainz, Josef, 258.
Kermesses, 15, 31, 40, 43.
Key, Ellen, 258.
Khnopff, Fernand, 21, 45.
Klinger, Max, 128.
Knowledge, 179, 180, 216, 220-222,
225, 227, 229, 232-234, 236, 245.
Künstlertheater, Munich, 174.
'LA BARQUE,' 58.
'Là-has,' 62.
Labour Party, Belgian, 93.
'La Bourse,' 98.
'La Conquête' (_La Multiple Splendeur_),
109, 114, 199.
'La Conquête' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_),
115, 203, 206.
'L'Action,' 128, 209, 220.
'La Ferveur,' 204, 208, 219, 224-225, 232.
'La Folie,' 212.
'La Forêt,' 77.
Laforgue, Jules, 144.
'La Foule,' 3, 76, 95, 107, 112,
152, 185.
_La Guirlande des Dunes_, 246.
'La Joie,' 55, 66, 226, 231.
'La Louange du Corps humain,' 227.
Lamartine, A.M.L. de, 32, 145.
'L'Âme de la Ville,' 95, 97, 105.
'La Mort,' 211.
'La Morte,' 64.
'L'Amour,' 68.
_La Multiple Splendeur_, 109, 114,
122, 126, 182, 183, 199, 200,
204, 208, 209, 210, 211, 217,
219, 221, 223, 224-225, 226,
227, 228, 231, 232, 233.
'La Plaine,' 103.
'La Pluie,' 71.
'La Prière,' 253.
'La Recherche,' 207, 211.
'L'Art,' 11.
'La Science,' 209, 210.
Latin races, the, 19.
'L'Attente,' 197, 211, 212.
'L'Aventurier,' 71.
'La Vie,' 215, 219, 228.
'La Ville,' 97.
'L'Eau,' 201-202.
'Le Bazar,' 98, 99.
'Le Capitaine,' 116.
Le Cardonnel, Georges, 215-216.
_Le Cloître_, 49, 162, 165-166, 168,
172, 174.
'Le Départ,' 103.
'Le Forgeron,' 70, 73.
'Le Gel,' 58.
Lemonnier, Camille, 20-21, 33, 37, 244.
'Le Mont,' 81.
'L'En-Avant,' 125, 226.
'Le Paradis,' 213, 236.
'Le Passeur d'Eau,' 71.
'Le Port,' 103.
Lerberghe, Charles van, 15, 22, 25, 26.
'Le Roc,' 61, 64, 65.
'L'Erreur,' 208.
_Les Apparus dans mes Chemins_, 66, 72, 73, 76.
_Les Aubes_, 103, 109, 115, 162, 166-167.
_Les Blés Mouvants_, 36, 229.
'Les Cultes,' 203.
_Les Débâcles_, 57, 60, 61, 63, 65.
_Les Campagnes Hallucinées_, 97,
101 ff., 162, 197.
_Les Flamandes_, 33, 36 ff., 49, 45,
197, 229.
_Les Flambeaux Noirs_, 67, 61, 64, 65.
_Les Forces Tumultueuses_, 11, 17,
115, 116, 123, 125, 132, 137,
161, 182, 183, 186, 203, 204,
206, 208, 209, 210, 212, 220,
222, 226, 229, 233, 255.
_Les Héros_, 4, 228.
_Les Heures Claires_, 237.
_Les Heures d'Après-midi_, 234, 237,
239, 240, 241, 241, 242.
_Les Heures du Soir_, 237, 242.
'Les Heures où l'on crée,' 123.
'Les Mages,' 233.
_Les Moines_, 43 ff., 55, 58, 145,
162, 165, 197, 208.
'Les Nombres,' 65.
'Le Sonneur,' 71, 187.
'Les Pêcheurs,' 71.
'Les Penseurs,' 209, 210.
_Les Petites Légendes_, 197.
'Les Promeneuses,' 98.
'Les Rêves,' 215, 221.
_Les Rythmes Souverains_, 182, 183,
213, 229, 236, 253.
'Les Saintes,' 72, 73.
_Les Soirs_,57, 58, 60, 61.
'Les Spectacles,' 98, 179.
_Les Tendresses Premières_, 4, 25, 27.
_Les Vignes de ma Muraille_, 141.
'Les Vieux Maîtres,' 39.
_Les Villages Illusoires_, 70-71, 73, 162, 187.
'Les Villes,' 91, 204.
_Les Villes Tentaculaires_, 91 ff.,
103, 104, 105, 115, 158, 162,
166, 197, 205, 207, 211, 257.
_Les Visages de la Vie_ ,3, 55, 66,
76, 77, 95, 107, 112, 152, 182,
183, 185, 199, 201-202, 209,
211, 212, 220.
'L'Étal,' 99.
'Le Tribun,' 132.
'Le Verbe,' 117, 122, 126.
'L'Heure Mauvaise,' 57, 59, 149.
'L'Impossible,' 137, 220, 222.
Locomotives, 124, 125.
London, 55, 63, 90, 92, 108, 113, 114.
Louvain, 31.
Love, 7, 29, 66, 72, 86, 170-173,
197, 221, 223-224, 230, 234 ff.
MACHINERY, 74, 81-82, 84 ff.,
155, 206, 211.
Madness, 57, 63 ff., 69, 102.
Maeterlinck, Maurice, 15, 22, 25,
26, 45, 143, 213, 249.
_Maison du Peuple, La_, 93.
Mallarmé, Stéphane, 144.
Manchester, 174.
'Ma Race,' 17, 35.
Marriage, 94, 197, 237 ff., 243.
Martyrs, 19, 207.
'Méditation,' 208.
Mendès, Catulle, 143.
Merrill, Stuart, 143.
Messel, Alfred, 87.
Metaphors, 46, 136, 137, 141,
156, 157, 160.
Metaphysics, 24, 184, 199, 203,
215, 216, 220, 236.
Meunier, Constantin, 17, 22, 86.
Minne, Georges, 21, 45.
Mockel, Albert, 22, 48, 139, 143,
157, 189, 246, 249.
Monasteries (_see_ Cloisters).
Monastery of Bornhem, 45.
--of Forges, 46.
Monet, Claude, 86.
Money, 95, 98-99, 102, 103, 114 201.
Monistic philosophy, 202, 258.
Monks, 44, 45 ff., 235.
Mont, Pol de, 14.
Morality, 6, 16, 40, 51, 88, 167,
182, 205, 216, 217, 219, 224.
Moréas, Jean, 143.
Motion, 121, 141, 217.
Motor-cars, 14, 87, 124.
'Mourir,' 60.
Multitude (_see_ Crowd).
Munich, 19, 92, 174.
Music halls, 98.
Mysticism, 214, 258.
Mystics, the, 18, 207.
Mythology, 51, 172, 182, 184.
NATURALISM, 37-38, 41.
Nature, 3, 20, 28, 29, 55, 94, 96,
99, 105, 112, 123, 125, 158, 172,
195, 200-205, 212, 213, 239,
246, 247, 248.
Necessary, the, is the beautiful,
7, 9, 10, 86, 218.
Neologisms, 154, 160.
Neurasthenia, 56 ff., 118.
New age, the, 3 ff., 105, 206-207, 211.
--European, the, 9.
New York, 108.
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 10, 68, 66,
85-86, 115, 119, 133, 134, 181,
218, 229, 251.
OMBIAUX, MAURICE DES, 22.
Onomatopœia, 149.
Oppidomagnum, 103, 108, 166-167,
Optimism, 184, 207, 208, 210, 258.
Organisation, 6, 88, 93, 98, 101,
107, 114, 116, 118-119.
Orgies, 15, 39, 40, 41.
Oxford, 25.
PAN, 51, 184.
Pan-American, the, 115.
Pan-European, the, 115.
Pantheism, 24, 77, 215, 225, 226.
Paradise, 212-213.
Paris, 55, 87, 93, 108, 113, 114,
174, 248-249.
Parnassian poetry, 48, 145, 146.
Paroxysm, 63, 64, 89, 188.
_Parsival_,37.
Passion, 48, 67, 77, 92, 97, 99,
109, 110, 117, 118, 120-123,
128-131, 133, 135, 136, 147,
159, 163-165, 168-170, 173, 174,
179, 181, 189, 194, 212, 215,
217, 227-229, 231, 232, 235,
238, 241, 245, 251, 252.
Past, the, 7, 10, 14, 26, 36, 46,
50-53, 69, 82, 85 ff., 94, 100,
104, 105, 109, 167, 180, 182,
207, 231, 246.
Peasants, 16, 20-21, 29, 102-103,
146-147, 247, 251.
Pessimism, 43, 68, 258.
Petöfi, Alexander, 132.
Philip II., 16, 19,167-169.
_Philippe II._, 92,162, 165, 167-169, 174.
Philosophy, 9, 10, 151, 179, 182,
184, 187, 194, 216, 236, 256, 258.
Picard, Edmond, 33.
Poetry, the new, 6, 7, 8, 73, 77,
83 ff., 109, 111-113, 116, 119,
126, 132, 133, 137, 139, 155,
205-206, 216, 222.
Poets, the, 50-51, 82, 208-209.
--of the old school, 6, 7, 12,
51-52, 81 ff., 109, 111-112, 125,
129-131, 188, 190, 192, 193,
206, 255.
Pol de Mont, 14.
Poverty, 14, 16, 94, 102-103.
Prague, 91.
Present, the, 3 ff., 10, 51, 52,
105, 115, 167, 179-180, 182,
201, 246, 254, 255, 256.
Pride, 23, 70, 72, 219, 221, 224,
230, 231, 256.
Progress, 3-5, 7, 104, 209.
Prostitutes, 98, 99, 102.
Protestantism, 14.
Pseudoanæsthesia, 156.
Psychology, 47, 113, 180.
Puritanism, 16.
RABELAIS, FRANÇOIS, 40.
Realism, 37-38, 199.
Reality, 6, 7, 37-38, 50-52, 70,
81, 85-86, 111, 114, 115, 131,
153, 155, 167, 179, 183, 185,
192, 196, 198, 199, 201, 204,
206, 255, 259.
Recitation, 122-123, 128 ff., 136,
139, 149, 157.
Reinhardt, Max, 174.
Religion, 6, 9, 24, 44, 47, 50, 64,
67, 105, 182-184, 196, 205, 208,
211, 238, 240, 257.
--, a new, 6, 20, 50, 88, 104.
Rembrandt, 11, 43, 46, 187.
_Rembrandt_, 2, 11.
Renan, Ernest, 85.
Renunciation, 19, 27, 44, 52.
Responsibility, 253 ff.
Revolt, 16, 30, 42, 62, 99, 117,
122, 142-146, 160, 169, 195,
229, 256.
Rhapsodists, 128 ff.
Rhetoricians, 134.
Rhyme, 144, 153, 155.
Rhythm, 24, 41, 74, 94, 95, 97,
105, 116, 118 ff., 137, 141,
146 ff., 153, 157, 163, 173, 174,
193, 194, 201, 238, 247, 251, 256.
--of life, the, 5, 7, 8, 11, 117 ff.
Rilke, Rainer Maria, 154, 187, 249.
_Ring, The_, 37.
Rodenbach, Georges, 21, 25, 26, 39.
Rodin, Auguste, 135, 249.
Rolland, Romain, 249,
Romains, Jules, 256-257.
Roman Catholicism, 14, 16, 24,
26, 31, 44, 46, 67, 69, 162, 165-166,
168-169, 184.
Romanticism, 46.
Romanticists, the, 50, 147.
Rome, 108, 114.
Rops, Félicien, 22.
Rubens, Peter Paul, 20, 40, 41,
43, 58.
Rubinstein, Ida, 174.
Ruskin, John, 82.
Russia, 257.
Russians, the, 43.
Rysselberghe, Théo van, 22, 249.
ST. AMAND, 27-
Saint-Cloud, 249.
'Saint Georges,' 72, 73.
Sainte-Barbe, College of, 25-26, 30, 213.
St. Petersburg, 114.
Saints, 19, 210, 212.
'S'amoindrir,' 60.
Scandinavia, 18, 258.
Scheldt, the, 27, 28.
Schiller, Friedrich, 134,158, 160, 168.
Schlaf, Johannes, 65.
Scholars, 209, 210.
Science, 6, 9, 18, 64, 77, 82, 85,
108, 155, 205-209, 222.
Sea, the, 13, 15, 30, 103, 201,
202, 247, 248.
Selfishness, 72, 223.
Sensations, 6-9, 65,104, 120, 125,
130, 164, 188, 189, 190, 192,
202, 203, 225, 240.
Sensuality, 15, 16, 24, 40, 41, 44,
98, 162, 170-172, 241, 245.
Sex, 234 ff.
Shakespeare, William, 10, 163.
Signac, Paul, 249.
Silence, 44-46, 117, 122, 130, 214, 239
'Si Morne,' 61.
Social feeling, 83, 110.
--problem, the, 8, 9, 101 ff., 187.
Socialism, 9, 24, 89, 93, 224.
Society, 249.
Solitude, 44, 55, 57, 69, 70, 76,
81, 83, 86, 91, 112, 237.
Sonnets, 41, 46.
Soul, 43, 89, 141, 182, 225, 237.
'Sous les Prétoriens,' 111.
Spain, 16, 55, 92, 162, 165, 191.
Spaniards, the, 16.
Stappen, van der, 22.
Stevens, Alfred, 22.
Strauss, David, 50.
Suicide, 62, 64, 65.
Superman, the, 115.
Symbolism, 71, 99, 143 ff.
Symbolists, the, 143 ff., 256.
Symbols, 7, 19,21, 45, 47, 51, 70,
71, 72, 92, 104, 107, 144, 163,
165, 168, 195, 201, 202, 213,
218, 237, 247, 248.
Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 160.
TAMERLAINE, 108.
_Tannhäuser_,37.
Teutonic elements, 14, 18, 24, 39,
146, 159, 194, 225.
Thames, the, 64.
_Thyl Ulenspiegel_, 19, 167, 168.
Toledo, 191.
Tolstoy, Leo, 82.
Torpedo-boats, 87.
_Toute la Flandre_, 4, 23, 25, 27,
168, 197, 244, 246.
Town (_see_ City).
Tradition, 26, 27, 85, 92, 145, 146, 243.
Travel, 55, 91-92, 124, 201.
'Truandailies,' 40.
Truth, 37-38.
Turner, J.M.W., 152.
UNITY, 23, 108, 113, 114, 199,
202, 203, 211, 215 ff., 225, 252.
Université Libre, Brussels, 93.
Unknown, the, 3, 6, 69, 204, 207,
212, 220, 224.
'Un Matin,' 229.
'Un Soir ' (_Au Bord de la Route_), 63, 68.
'Un Soir' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_), 183, 186, 255.
Utopia, 109, 115, 167, 199.
VANDERVELDE, EMIL, 93.
Vellay, Charles, 215-216.
Venice, 13.
Verhaeren, Émile, born at St. Amand on the
Scheldt, 1855, 27; his boyhood, 27-28; educated at
the College of Sainte-Barbe in Ghent, 25-26;
studies jurisprudence at Louvain, 31; called to the
bar in Brussels, 32; his first verses, 32, 33, 145
ff.; publication of _Les Flamandes,_ 33 ff.;
resides for three weeks in the monastery of
Forges, 46; publication of _Les Moines_, 45 ff.;
his health breaks down, 55 ff., 237; his illness
is described in _Les Soirs, Les Débâcles, Les
Flambeaux Noirs,_ and _Au Bord de la Route_, 57
ff.; his travels, 55, 91-92, 124; he is obsessed
by the atmosphere of London, 55; his recovery is
symbolised in some of the poems of _Les Villages
Illusoires_, 70-71; his marriage, 94, 237 ff., 243;
his connection with the Labour Party and
Socialism, 89, 93-94; the Flemish element in his
style, 154-155; his technique, 141 ff.; stage
performances of his dramas, 164, 174-175; how he
recites his poetry, 122-123; he resides at
Caillou-qui-bique and Saint-Cloud, 30, 93, 246,
248-249; his personal appearance, 67, 251; his
personality, 244 ff.
Verlaine, Paul, 69, 120, 142, 144, 243.
'Vers,' 60.
'Vers la Mer,' 152.
'Vers le Cloître,' 63.
'Vers le Futur,' 104, 205, 207.
_Vers libre_, the, 74, 144 ff., 163.
_Vers ternaire, le_, 147.
Vielé-Griffin, Francis, 143, 246, 249.
Vienna, 91, 114, 174.
Vitality, 12, 15, 16, 19, 24, 32,
33, 40, 43, 119, 131, 190, 200-202,
206, 229, 248, 258.
WAGNER, RICHARD, 37, 92.
Walloons, the, 14, 22.
Weyden, Roger van der, 43.
Whistler, J. M'Neill, 86.
Whitman, Walt, 24, 86, 108-109,
115, 132, 134, 187, 190-191,
227 257.
Will, the, 23, 60-62, 73-74, 133,
181, 194-195, 198, 203, 212,
223.
_Wisdom and Destiny_, 213.
Woman, 172-173, 192, 234 ff.
Women, Belgian, 17.
YPRES, 21, 43.
ZOLA, ÉMILE, 37.