WOOED LIKE A TIGER.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3464, 2 March 1912, Page 3

WOOED LIKE A TIGER.

HOW MAETERLINCK’S WIFE WON

J HIM. ACTRESS RUSHES AUTHOR ON SIGHT. I Mme. Maeterlinck, the wife of the famous Belgian poet and playwright, who was Mile. .Georgette Leblanc, the actress, in a remarkable interview with a woman reporter of the New York “American,” tells the story of her impetuous wooing,of the shy, retiring Belgian genius who is now her husband. “Why I tell you this I do not know,” she began. “Nobody knows my story, hut let me tell it. I was singing in opera comique in Paris. I had made a successful debut, and had signed a i..ree-year contract, when I came across a philosophical hook translated from your Emerson by Maeterlinck. “I read Maeterlinck’s preface, and was enraptured. I read and read. It was like talking of things my mind had dreamed of. One evening I remained awake all night thinking of the hook and the mind behind the book. “I thought, ‘He’s mine; lie’s my husband; he’s my love, the only love I have ever known. I shall meet him. I shall love him. He shall love me.’ “I betook myself to Brussels, where Maeterlinck lived, and I soug'ht his acquaintance. It was hard. I had to meet some one who knew him, and when I did meet such a man lie told me Maeterlinck was a savage who detested people, especially the unreal people of the stage. “I was an unreal woman of the stage,

hut the admiration I felt for the writer of that wonderful hook was real. “ Besides,’ said my friend, ‘Maeterlinck is not wliat your imagination pictures him. He is old and has a long and grizzly beard. He has passed into old age.’ “I was disappointed, yet I still wanted to meet him, and I said to my friend, ‘I would love him as a daughter, if I cannot have him as my love. I shall meet him and adopt him as my father.’ “A party was given, and I was invited. I never will forget that moment when I looked upon Maeterlinck, young, beautiful and strong, a man among men. “ I SHRIEKED AND RAN.” “I shrieked and ran wildly toward him. He was afraid. I was like a baby tiger. “I had pressed myself most originally. I wore a close-fitting Mack gown with a train, and I wore a diamond between my eyes, and no other jewels, no other color, hut my heart was aflame my eyes blazed, my cheeks burned like coals.

“ ‘Mv man, my man, you are mine,’ I said as I took his hand. He was afraid and overcome by my audacity, as he thought it to be, hut it was only my love which had come like a tempest in the forest. He was so wonderful, hut so shy, so diffident.

“Finally he became interested in me. He asked me pertinent questions about myself and my life. I told him the truth. There is never anything to hide in the life of perfeely truthful persons. TWO NATURES. “I told him I had two natures, one of the stage, joyous, indifferent to realities, whimsical, and pleasure loving, while the other was the housewife, the real woman,who would and could make sacrifices, who would and could be loyal, patient, enduring, kind. In both I was honest. In each I could he happy at times, hut I wanted one to dominate the other. I wanted the real woman, the serious creature, that dwelt with midnight oil over his philosophy, and the woman who wanted to live to some purpose, to dominate. ~ ... “Maeterlinck listened in his clear, bird-like way. He did not know whether it was the truth after all. It was interesting, he acknowledged, and new in his experience. I was sensitive. “ ‘You doubt me,’ I said. ‘Leave me and I shall make you believe me.’ “We parted, but love lingered in my heart. Every day for three months I wrote to him and told him my every thought.! He still has all these letters and says he will never part with them. “I never saw him, nor would I see him. My letters told him my story. He tried to see me, but he tried in vain. “At last after three months, in which I had thought of nothing hut him, he came to me, and we have loved each other for all time. To-day I love him with an infiniteness of love that was unknown then to me. “I have a baby, the only baby I have ever longed for, and ever shall have—my husband. He is a. big, overgrown baby, as every splendid man is. “The greater the intelligence of a man the more a child he is in some moods. A successful wife, with or without children, will never overlook the fact that her biggest baby is her husband.”