ABOUT BOOK

One of the most curious of books that have appeared in many months is "The Life of the Bee," by Maurice Maeterlinck. From one point of view it is a nature book--a conscientious and intimate study of bee life, showing not only diligent reading, but dose personal observation. It is all this, but it is also a great deal more. Maeterlinck is one of those rarely gifted minds who cannot treat even of commonplace things without striking out some new flash of light from them; while with a subject like that of the bee, with all the interest of its complex social life, the unfathomed questions of what these little creatures know and think and feel, the delicate hair line of division between reason and instinct, Maeterlinck has a theme from which he has developed a sort of prose poem full of dreamy yet subtle philosophy of life and life's mysteries. Translated by Alfred Sutro, 1914.