SOME years ago Octave Mirbeau wrote an article in the Paris Figaro entitled "A Belgian Shakespeare." He meant Maeterlinck and the epithet was not appropriate, but it made people read Maeterlinck's dramas. Since then Maeterlinck has held a foremost position on the modern stage. His characters are indistinct beings, shadowy figures moving on a stage that is not of this world; and the action is that of insubstantial spirits, souls rather than men and women of flesh and blood. But he succeeds always, by means of simple unpretentious language, in making his meaning clear, in revealing the spiritual beauty of common human existence and the mystery underlying the facts of biology. A MIRACLE OF SAINT ANTONY and most of the plays in this volume have never before been published in English. The first is a fine satire in truly Maeterlinckian style. They are all powerful specimens of Maeterlinck's art, which have met with great success on the European and on the American stage.