The most recent prophet of Stoicism is Maurice Maeterlinck. In "Wisdom and Destiny," he says:--
"The event itself is pure water that flows from the pitcher of fate, and seldom has it either savour or perfume or colour. But even as the soul may be wherein it seeks shelter, so will the event become joyous or sad, become tender or hateful, become deadly or quick with life. To those round about us there happen incessant and countless adventures, whereof every one, it would seem, contains a germ of heroism; but the adventure passes away, and heroic deed there is none. But when Jesus Christ met the Samaritan, met a few children, an adulterous woman, then did humanity rise three times in succession to the level of God."
"It might almost be said that there happens to men only that they desire. It is true that on certain external events our influence is of the feeblest, but we have all-powerful action on that which these events shall become in ourselves--in other words, on their spiritual part. The life of most men will be saddened or lightened by the thing that may chance to befall them,--in the men whom I speak of, whatever may happen is lit up by their inward life. If you have been deceived, it is not the deception that matters, but the forgiveness whereto it gave birth in your soul, and the loftiness, wisdom, completeness of this forgiveness,--by these shall your eyes see more clearly than if all men had ever been faithful. But if, by this act of deceit, there have come not more simpleness, loftier faith, wider range to your love, then have you been deceived in vain, and may truly say nothing has happened."
"Let us always remember that nothing befalls us that is not of the nature of ourselves. There comes no adventure but wears to our soul the shape of our everyday thoughts; and deeds of heroism are but offered to those who, for many long years, have been heroes in obscurity and silence. And whether you climb up the mountain or go down the hill to the valley, whether you journey to the end of the world or merely walk round your house, none but yourself shall you meet on the highway of fate. If Judas go forth to-night, it is toward Judas his steps will tend, nor will chance for betrayal be lacking; but let Socrates open his door,--he shall find Socrates asleep on the threshold before him, and there will be occasion for wisdom. We become that which we discover in the sorrows and joys that befall us; and the least expected caprices of fate soon mould themselves to our thought. It is in our past that Destiny finds all her weapons, her vestments, her jewels. A sorrow your soul has changed into sweetness, to indulgence or patient smiles, is a sorrow that shall never return without spiritual ornament; and a fault or defect you have looked in the face can harm you no more. All that has thus been transformed can belong no more to the hostile powers. Real fatality exists only in certain external disasters--as disease, accident, the sudden death of those we love; but inner fatality there is none. Wisdom has will power sufficient to rectify all that does not deal death to the body; it will even at times invade the narrow domain of external fatality. Even when the deed has been done, the misfortune has happened, it still rests with ourselves to deny her the least influence on that which shall come to pass in our soul. She may strike at the heart that is eager for good, but still is she helpless to keep back the light that shall stream to this heart from the error acknowledged, the pain undergone. It is not in her power to prevent the soul from transforming each single affliction into thoughts, into feelings, and treasure she dare not profane. Be her empire never so great over all things external, she always must halt when she finds on the threshold a silent guardian of the inner life. For even as triumph of dictators and consuls could be celebrated only in Rome, so can the true triumph of Fate take place nowhere save in our soul."