Note 56 — MAETERLINCK AND MUSIC

I am compelled to draw attention to the words "æsthetic systems" because, on the appearance of this article in The Atlantic Monthly, a not unkindly reviewer took me to task for asserting, as he thought, that the art-work of Wagner was akin to that of Maeterlinck; he pointed out, quite rightly, that César Franck's work lies closer to Maeterlinck's than does Wagner's. But of course I had never asserted that Wagner and Maeterlinck spoke to us in the same language or of the same things. I was only concerned to prove that underlying the so very different practice of the two men was a curious similarity of æsthetic theory.