Page:Prophets of dissent essays on Maeterlinck, Strindberg, Nietzsche and Tolstoy (1918).djvu/29

Rh predisposition adapted itself to this important change it could not relate itself at all intimately to our interests. Our study of Maeterlinck should help us, therefore, to discover possibly in the new romantic tendency some practical and vital bearings.

We find that in the new romanticism esthetic and philosophical impulses are inextricably mixed. Hence the new movement is also playing an indispensable role in the modern re-foundation of art. For while acting as a wholesome offset to the so-called naturalism, in its firm refusal to limit inner life to the superficial realities, it at the same time combines with naturalism into a complete recoiling, both of the intellect and the emotions, from any commonplace, or pusillanimous, or mechanical practices of artistry. This latter-day romanticism, moreover, notwithstanding its sky-aspiring outstretch, is akin to naturalism in that, after all, it keeps its roots firmly grounded in the earth; that is to say, it seeks for its ulterior sanctions not in realms high beyond the self; rather it looks within for the "blue flower" of contentedness. Already to the romantics of old the mystic road to happiness was not unknown. It is, for instance, pointed by Novalis: "Inward leads the