Jean Dominique (pseudonym of Mlle. Marie Closset), whose volume of poems, Le Puits d'Azur, was published in 1912, is undoubtedly one of the most gifted of contemporary women writers. Mlle. Closset is a teacher and lives in Brussels. Another original and interesting woman writer, Neel Doff, has published Jours de Famine et Détresse (1911) and Contes Farouches (1913).
A considerable number of books and poems dealing with and inspired by the war were published by Belgian writers in England and France during the war, as well as in Belgium itself after the refugees and soldiers returned home. During the German occupation Belgians had necessarily been debarred from publishing works inspired by their patriotic feelings. Besides Verhaeren's war poems, Emile Cammaerts' Belgian Poems (1915) may be mentioned.
Professor Pirenne's Souvenirs de Captivité en Allemagne (1920) are a notable contribution to Belgian war literature in prose. An interesting book which consists of a series of essays on the war and the German occupation, L'Œil sur les Ostrogoths, by Ernest Verlant, director of Fine Arts, may live as a record of the impressions of a subtle mind and a cultivated personality. A monthly review Le Flambeau, published clandestinely in Brussels during the German occupation, by Oscar Grojean, Henri Grégoire and Anatole Muhlstein, a young Pole, and which continues to appear, edited by Grojean and Grégoire, is without doubt the most interesting literary and political review in Belgium. Amongst contemporary writers and poets in Belgium may be mentioned: Fernand Severin (La Solitude Heureuse, 1901); Max Elskamp (Sous les Tentes de l'Exode, 1921; Les Commentaires et l'Idiographie du jeu de Loto dans les Flandres, 1914); Georges Raemaekers (Les Saisons Mystiques, 1910); t'Serstevens (Un Apostolat); Blanche Rousseau (Le Rabaga, 1912; Lisette et sa Pantoufle, 1913); Glesener (Chronique d'un petit Pays, 1913).
In 1920 Crommelynck's play Le Cocu Magnifique created a sensation in Paris where it had a long run at the Theatre de l'Œuvre. In Brussels it obtained more or less of a " succes de scandale." It deals with a case of pathological jealousy. Crommelynck's other plays are Le Sculpteur de Masques (1908) and Les Amants Puerils (1921). Other Belgian plays include Kaatje and Malgré Ceux qui tombent, by Paul Spaak; Les Étapes, Les Liens and Les Semailles (1919) by Gustave van Zype, and Le Mariage de Mademoiselle Beulemans by Fonson and Wicheler, a picture of the life of the lower middle class in Brussels.
In Flemish literature there has been marked activity. Stijn Streuvels, a nephew of Guido Gezelle, and by profession a baker at Avelghem, a village in Flanders, has made a considerable reputation both in Belgium and in Holland. His descriptions of rural life are both poetic and realistic, and he has been compared to Tolstoi, whose psychological subtleties and epic amplitude Streuvels however does not possess. His style is of rare perfection, and this remark applies to the whole of the modern Flemish school of writers. Streuvels's work, Het Glorieryke Licht (The Glorious Light), was written in 1913. In 1914 he published Dorpslucht and in 1920 Genoveva van Brabant, a historical novel.
Cyriel Buysse may be called the Flemish Maupassant. He is a realist. His works, which deal with the life of the people both in towns and in the country and, to a lesser degree, with that of the middle classes, form a complete picture of Flemish life. Buysse is passionate, robust, full of revolt and of pity, very human. His De Vroolyke Thocht (The Joyous Expedition), Stemmingen (Impressions), and in collaboration with Virginie Leveling, a popular woman author, Levensleer (Education through Life) appeared between 1910 and 1912. In 1915 Buysse published Zomerleven (Life in the Summer), a sort of diary, and in 1921 Zooals Het Was (As It Was). Maurice Sabbe's De Nood der Bariseeles (The Plight of the Bariseeles), In 't Gedrang (1915, a book about the war), and 't Pastorke van Schaerdycke (1919, The Little Pastor of Schaerdycke) and E. Vermeulen's Herwording (Renaissance), which deals with the life of the peasants in West Flanders, may also be mentioned.
Rene de Clercq and Karel van de Woestyne are the most typical Flemish poets of the present generation. Ren6 de Clercq proceeds directly from the inspiration of Guido Gezelle (1830-89). His poems are essentially popular, vigorous, full of life and good spirits, although through these one feels his tenderness, his pity for the misery of the Flemish peasants. He has published a volume of Gedichten (Poems). Karel van de Woestyne has a more complex personality. His poems are very varied in feeling, sometimes simple and direct, at other times complicated, full of metaphors. His sphere is that of the soul, and for him things are real in so far only as they partake of the spiritual life. It is necessary to add that there are contrasts in Van de Woestyne's nature which he does not always dominate, and which give a certain want of harmony to his works. A volume containing prose essays on Flemish painters and writers is Kunst en Letien in Vlaanderen (Art and Life in Flanders). A volume of poems is De Gulden Schaden (The Golden Shadow). In 1918 Van de Woestyne wrote a book in poetic prose, mystic and difficult, called De Bestendige Aanwezigheid (The Eternal Presence), and in 1920 a volume of poems De Modderen Man (of which the nearest translation is The Man of Clay), the first volume of a trilogy. A new Belgian Flemish writer of outstanding importance is Felix Timmermans who, before he became celebrated in Belgium and Holland, sold sweets in a little shop in his native to wn of Lierre. Pallicter (1916) is epoch-making in contemporary Belgian literature. It is as forceful as Rabelais and yet tender and poetic, with a pantheistic feeling for nature: the ecstasy of a human being who incorporates himself with woods and streams, flowers and beasts, and who revels in every form of life. One may say that this book takes an important place in European literature. It had already reached 12 editions in 1921, and a French translation was then about to appear. Another book of Timmermans, Het Kindeken Jesus in Vlaanderen (1918, The Christ Child in Flanders), is a most poetical transplantation of the story of the childhood of Christ. This has already been done in Belgian French literature by Eugene Demolder. But whereas Demolder's book is full of literary devices Timmermans's comes as it were from the heart of the people. Another Flemish prose writer is Herman Teirlinck: De nieuive Uylenspiegel (1920, The New Eulenspiegel), a fantasy; and amongst the best-known recent poets Auguste van Cauwelaert, Frits Francken and Daan Boens may be mentioned. Cyriel Verschaeve has written a dramatic poem Judas, and Eug. Schmidt a play Het Kindernummer (a turn performed by a child at a music-hall).
(L. Va.)
BELL, CHARLES FREDERICK MOBERLY (1847-1911),
British journalist, was born in Alexandria April 2 1847, the son of a merchant. He was educated in England, but in 1865 went back to Egypt and engaged in business. He soon began sending occasional correspondence to the London Times, and from 1875 onwards devoted himself mainly to journalism. By 1880, when he founded the Egyptian Gazette, he had become the regular correspondent for The Times in Egypt. He also published Khedives and Pashas (1884); Egyptian Finance (1887) and From Pharaoh to Fellah (1888). In 1890 he was summoned to London to take the post of manager (nominally assistant-manager) of The Times, at a time when it had suffered heavy financial losses over the proceedings connected with the Parnell Commission (see 20.858). From that date he devoted all his masterful energies to the journal he served. When The Times Publishing Co. was formed in 1908, and the financial control passed from the Walter family to Lord Northcliffe, he became managing director. He died suddenly whilst at work in The Times offices April 5 1911.
BELL, GERTRUDE MARGARET LOWTHIAN (1868-), English traveller and geographer, was born at Washington, Durham, July 14 1868, the eldest daughter of Sir T. Hugh Bell, Bart. She was educated at Queen's College, London, and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where she graduated first class in the final school of modern history in 1888. She travelled extensively in the Near East, making a specially adventurous journey across northern Arabia in 1913-4 over a practically unknown route, whereby she obtained a knowledge of the country which
