I put it as it has always struck me; he replies, "Not at all.
You may, if you like, describe this thing as an animal and sexual
instinct, designed for certain natural purposes; that is your
philosophical or zooelogical theory about it. What it is, beyond all
doubt of any kind, is a divine and sacred and incredible vision." The
fact that it is an animal necessity only comes to the naturalistic
philosopher after looking abroad, studying its origins and results,
constructing an explanation of its existence, more or less natural and
conclusive. The fact that it is a spiritual triumph comes to the first
errand boy who happens to feel it. If a lad of seventeen falls in love
and is struck dead by a hansom cab an hour afterwards, he has known the
thing as it is, a spiritual ecstasy; he has never come to trouble about
the thing as it may be, a physical destiny. If anyone says that falling
in love is an animal thing, the answer is very simple. The only way of
testing the matter is to ask those who are experiencing it, and none of
those would admit for a moment that it was an animal thing.
Maeterlinck's appearance in Europe means primarily this subjective
intensity; by this the materialism is not overthrown: materialism is
undermined. He brings, not something which is more poetic than realism,
not something which is more spiritual than realism, not something which
is more right than realism, but something which is more real than
realism.
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