Section 2 : Part 3

Wisdom and Destiny
by Maurice Maeterlinck

(Page 5 of 14)

43. And let us not think that these are mere empty words wherewith they console themselves, words that in vain seek to hide the wound that bleeds but the more for the effort. But if it were so, if empty words could console, that surely were better than to be bereft of all consolation. And further, if we have to admit that all this is illusion, must we not, in mere justice, also admit that illusion is the solitary thing that the soul can possess; and in the name of what other illusion shall we venture to rate this illusion so lightly? Ah, when the night falls and the great sages I speak of go back to their lonely dwelling, and look on the chairs round the hearth where their children once were, but never shall be again - then, truly, can they not escape some part of the sorrow that comes, overwhelming, to those whose suffering no noble thought chastens.

For it were wrong to attribute to beautiful feeling and thought a virtue they do not possess. There are, external tears that they cannot restrain; there are holy hours when wisdom cannot yet console. But, for the last time let us say it, suffering we cannot avoid for suffering there ever must be; still does it rest with ourselves to choose what our suffering shall bring. And let us not think that this choice, which the eye cannot see, is truly a very small matter, and helpless to comfort a sorrow whose cause the eyes never cease to behold. Out of small matters like these are all moral joys built up, and these are profounder far than intellectual or physical joys. Translate into words the feeling that spurs on the hero, and how trivial it seems! Insignificant too does the idea of duty appear that Cato the younger had formed, when compared with the enormous disturbance it caused in a mighty empire, or the terrible death it brought on. And yet, was not Cato's idea far greater than the disturbance, or death, that ensued?

Do we not feel, even now, that Cato was right? And was not his life rendered truly and nobly happy, thanks to this very idea, that the reason of man will not even consider, so unreasonable does it appear? All that ennobles our life, all that we respect in ourselves, the mainsprings of our virtue, the limits that feeling will even impose upon vices or crimes - all these appear veriest trifles when viewed by the cold eye of reason; and yet do they fashion the laws that govern every man's life. Would life be endurable if we did not obey many truths that our reason rejects? The wretchedest even obeys one of these; and the more truths there are that he yields to, the less wretched does he become. The assassin will tell you, "I murder, it is true, but at least do not steal." And he who has stolen steals, but does not betray; and he who betrays would at least not betray his brother. And thus does each one cling for refuge to his last fragment of spiritual beauty. No man can have fallen so low but he still has a retreat in his soul, where he ever shall find a few drops of pure water, and be girt up anew with the strength that he needs to go on with his life. For here again reason is helpless, unable to comfort; she must halt on the threshold of the thief's last asylum, even as she must halt on the threshold of Job's resignation, of the love of Marcus Aurelius, of the sacrifice made by Antigone.

She halts, is bewildered, she does not approve; and yet knows full well that to rise in revolt were only to combat the light whereof she is shadow; for amidst all this she is but as one who stands with the sun full upon him. His shadow is there at his feet; as he moves, it will follow; as he rises or stoops, its outline will alter; but this shadow is all he commands, that he masters, possesses, of the dazzling light that enfolds him. And so has reason her being, too, beneath a superior light, and the shadow cannot affect the calm, unvarying splendour. Far distant as Marcus Aurelius may be from the traitor, it is still from the selfsame well that they both draw the holy water that freshens their soul; and this well is not to be found in the intellect.

For, strangely enough, it is not in our reason that moral life has its being; and he who would let reason govern his life would be the most wretched of men. There is not a virtue, a beautiful thought, or a generous deed, but has most of its roots hidden far away from that which can be understood or explained. Well might man be proud could he trace every virtue, and joy, and his whole inward life, to the one thing he truly possesses, the one thing on which he can depend - in a word, to his reason. But do what he will, the smallest event that arrives will quickly convince him that reason is wholly unable to offer him shelter; for in truth we are beings quite other than merely reasonable creatures.

44. But if it be not our reason that chooses what suffering shall bring us, whereby is the choice then made? By the life we have lived till then, the life that has moulded our soul. Wisdom matures but slowly; her fruits shall not quickly be gathered. If my life has not been as that of Paulus Aemilius, there shall be no comfort for me in the thoughts whereby he was consoled, not though every sage in the world were to come and repeat them to me. The angels that dry our eyes bear the form and the features of all we have said and thought- -above all, of what we have done, prior to the hour of misfortune. When Thomas Carlyle (a sage, although somewhat morbid) lost the wife he had tenderly loved, with whom he had lived forty years, then did his sorrow too, with marvellous exactness, become as had been the bygone life of his love.

And therefore was this sorrow of his majestic and vast; consoling and torturing alike in the midst of his self-reproach, his regret, and his tenderness - as might be meditation or prayer on the shore of a gloomy sea. In the sorrow that floods our heart we have, as it were, a synthetic presentment of all the days that are gone; and as these were, so shall our sorrow be poignant, or tender and gentle. If there be in my life no noble or generous deeds that memory can bring back to me, then, at the inevitable moment when memory melts into tears, must these tears, too, be bereft of all that is generous or noble. For tears in themselves have no colour, that they may the better reflect the past life of our soul; and this reflection becomes our chastisement or our reward.

There is but one thing that never can turn into suffering, and that is the good we have done. When we lose one we love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when we loved not enough. If we always had smiled on the one who is gone, there would be no despair in our grief; and some sweetness would cling to our tears, reminiscent of virtues and happiness. For our recollections of veritable love - which indeed is the act of virtue containing all others - call from our eyes the same sweet, tender tears as those most beautiful hours wherein memory was born. Sorrow is just, above all; and even as the cast stands ready awaiting the molten bronze, so is our whole life expectant of the hour of sorrow, for it is then we receive our wage.

About the Author

Count Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck (August 29, 1862 - May 6, 1949) was a Belgian poet, playwright, and essayist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911. The main themes in his work are death and the meaning of life.