THE NOBEL PRIZE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1261, 17 October 1911, Page 5

THE NOBEL PRIZE.

AWARD TO M. MAETERLINCK. By Telacrtiph— Press Assodation-Oopyrislit Stockholm, October 15. It is announced that Jl. Maurice Maeterlinck has received tho Nobel Prizo for Literature. The Nobel Foundation is based upon the will of Dr. Alfred Nobel, tho Swedish engineer and chemist, and the inventor of dvnamite, who died in 1898. There are five prizes, each worth about .CSOOO, to b? awarded annually for distinguished work in (1) Physics, (2) Chemistry, (3) Physiology or Medicine, (4) Literature, and (a) Peace. A Board of Control in Sweden allots tho prizes. Last year the Literature prize went to Paul Heyse, the German poet, nnd in 1909 to Selma loof, the Swedish authoress. "• Maurice Maeterlinck was born in 186' , at Ghent, Belgium. He published his first volume of verse in 1889, and his first play, "La Princesse Maleino," in tho following year. An article written by Mirabeau first directed public attention to his work. A recent biographer describes him as tho "Edison of the immaterial world." He has plumbed to the depths the dim regions of mind, has given to the phenomena of emotion, of imagination, tho same sort of life-long study that tho wizard of Monlo Park has given to tho'phenomena of the physical world. Ho is a dreamer, a mystic, a "spirit brooding over tho beauty, the melancholy or the horror of spectacles which are invisible to the greater part of men." In outward appearance Maurice Maeterlinck is a robust, muscular person much given to cultivating his animal well-being by sports and manual labour —a patient gardener, a skilful mechanic, a reliable chauffeur.