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 PAULINE FORE MOFFITT 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 GENERAL LIBRARY. BERKELEY 
 
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A PORTRAIT OF GEORGE MOORE 
 IN A STUDY OF HIS WORK 
 
A PORTRAIT OF GEORGE 
 MOORE IN A STUDY OF 
 HIS WORK M jir • jr 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN FREEMAN 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 D APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 1922 
 
Printed in England 
 
It were a kind of treason to remove the 
 imperfections from me, vvliich in me are 
 ordinary and constant. . . . Do I not lively 
 display my selfe ? That sufficeth : I have my 
 will : All the world may know me by my 
 booke, and my booke by me. — Montaigne. 
 
PAOB 
 
 CHAPTER ONE. MAYO . . . . . 1 
 
 TWO. A SENSITIVE PLANT . . 31 
 
 THREE. NATURALIST OR REALIST . 63 
 
 FOUR. NON DOLET! . . . .128 
 
 FIVE. THE TERMLESS JOURNEY . 183 
 
 SIX. A WANDERING MIND . . 217 
 
 A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE WORKS OF GEORGE 
 
 MOORE. Compiled by Henry Danielson . . 231 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 FASCINATING as the art of portraiture may be, it 
 is yet more difficult than fascinating when the 
 medium is not the brush or the pencil, but the twenty- 
 six letters of the alphabet. The difficulty does not 
 arise from the poverty but from the richness of the 
 medium, from its subtlety and confusions, hints and 
 associations, from its uncertainty as well as from its 
 simplicity, from its manifest variability as well as from its 
 secret rigidity. The ideal craftsman— to disclaim a higher 
 term — must needs subdue himself to his subject, and yet 
 without the intensest realization of himself he cannot 
 realize his subject; and hence the result of his labours, 
 patient and faithful though they be, may appear as much 
 a portrait of himself as of his sitter. And if he practise 
 his hand upon several subjects his facility may show itself 
 in nothing more plainly than in the involuntary portrayal 
 of his native characteristics, and a mere generalizing 
 tendency so far as his sitters are concerned. His only 
 advantage is that he need not consult — as must the artist 
 with the brush — the convenience or even ask the consent 
 of the subject ; but since that advantage does not affect 
 the present occasion, I do not dwell upon it here. 
 
 But the fortunate artist with the brush may achieve 
 at least an obvious likeness to the obvious features, and 
 whatever greater success he aims at he will not inevitably 
 forego this easier success ; for the poorest of painters does 
 not fail absolutely if he has skill enough to achieve a 
 superficial similarity. There sits his victim in the flesh, or 
 
walks between fields, speaks, meditates — observable, amen- 
 able and at worst to be rendered as a piece of still life. 
 Far different is the task of literary portraiture. It is not 
 the face that has to be presented — nor, will the painter 
 retort, is that the mere task for my brush. It is the 
 character, the spirit, the inward history that must be 
 expressed or suggested — and this, the painter cries 
 again, this is the task of my brush also. But the literary 
 craftsman will point out that the painter has one great 
 advantage, the advantage of working upon visible physical 
 characteristics, whereas for himself there are but the 
 invisible and disputable mental characteristics. Intelligent 
 readers of a certain writer will not agree upon the exact 
 proportions of the individual and the common, the new 
 and the old, the spontaneous and the mechanical parts ot 
 the subject's life and work ; their perception of these parts 
 is determined as much by predilections of their own as 
 by invariable characteristics in the author. And another 
 difficulty is to be noted. The painter with his brush has 
 not to contend against masks and disguises and cunning 
 defensive make-up ; and unless his genius is splendidly 
 wilful, he does not seek to show that the smile is false or 
 the modest touch a trick, that frank eye shallow or that 
 candid forehead cunning. But the literary craftsman, 
 drawing his material from a few facts of external life and 
 from a cloud of inferences touching the inner life, from 
 a score of diverse books, from pages written lightly or 
 gravely during a period of forty years, from works of 
 imagination, of criticism, of reminiscence, has no guide but 
 his own poor intelligence. His portrait may not be 
 recognizable by his subject — that is indeed probable ; but 
 others also may find it wanting in verisimilitude. They 
 may hold that all — or nothing — that the score of volumes 
 tell of their author's personality is really true of him ; 
 they may believe that things said dramatically are histori- 
 cal, and things said historically merely dramatic. Thus it 
 
XI 
 
 is that all that the literary craftsman may trust to (yet to 
 what else should he dare to trust?) is his own critical 
 imagination. Doubly difficult, then, is his attempt — and 
 doubly desirable. And if the painter, seeking to end an 
 argument with a flourish of his brush, cries. Confess, now, 
 that the task is an illegitimate task, your craft, as you are 
 pleased to call it, a bastard craft, neither portraiture nor 
 criticism, neither biography nor commentary ; the answer 
 is silence and argument is over. 
 
 But assume that the painter forbears such a conclusion, 
 the difficulty yet remains. Assume that the literary 
 portrait is a possible aim, it is not equally possible between 
 any subject and any craftsman. Pater may write of Marcus 
 Aurelius and Watteau, Carlyle of Robespierre ; but Pater 
 would have failed with Rabelais and Carlyle with Donne. 
 Antipathies, when they are precise, form the completest 
 barrier to divination. Neither, however, will the crafts- 
 man more certainly succeed if he is completely subjugated 
 by his sitter ; for resistance is as necessary to light as to 
 heat. But it is superfluous to pursue this notion, since the 
 result alone can show whether imperfect sympathies needs 
 must mar a literary portrait. Indeed, the only relevance 
 which these first paragraphs may claim is their explanation 
 of the method adopted in this study of George Moore, and 
 also, perhaps, their assertion of the value of that method 
 in abler hands than mine. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 MAYO 
 
1, who am king of the matter that 1 treat of, 
 and am not to give accompt of it to any creature 
 living, doe neverthelesse not altogether beleeve 
 my selfe for it : I often hazard upon certaine 
 outslips of minde for which I distrust my selfe ; 
 and certaine verball wilie-beguiles, whereat 1 shake 
 mine eares. ... 1 present my selfe standing 
 and lying, before and behinde, on the right and 
 left side, and in all by naturall motions. . . . 
 Loe here what my memory doth in grose, and 
 yet very uncertainely present unto me of it. — 
 Montaigne. 
 
OF all confessed egoists among English writers, none 
 has written more fully or more deceivingly con- 
 cerning himself than George Moore. He writes, indeed, 
 with seeming frankness, but that frankness must not mis- 
 lead you into forgetting that he studies himself anxiously, 
 adding here, brightening or diminishing there, and thus 
 applying to autobiography the spider-like ingenuity of a 
 novelist. Fact is to be distinguished from fiction, and yet 
 fiction is not to be rejected ; for in Moore's case it often 
 serves him as images serve a poet. That is to say, it is 
 false, and yet more illuminating than a narrow truth. But 
 except for the purpose of apprehending the inward desire, 
 the mental attitude, the fiction is not available for a por- 
 trait. To say, for instance, that in Confessio?is of a Young 
 Man there is a display of shabby dissoluteness, of crude 
 and plushy splendour, is to point out something which 
 illuminates a certain aspect of Moore's early work, but 
 which is obviously remote from the diligence and aristo- 
 cracy of his mind. Yet it would be hard for the novelist 
 himself, after more than thirty years' acquaintance with 
 his own work, to affirm or deny the literary truth of a 
 score of touches in that early book ; and I shall not pre- 
 tend to a greater skill than his own in looking either at 
 Confessions of a Young Man or another book. 
 
 Happily, some things are certain ; and of these the first 
 is that George Moore was born in 1852 at Moore Hall, 
 County Mayo, Ireland. It is claimed that the family has 
 for illustrious ancestor Sir Thomas More, of whom certain 
 portraits have remained among the family treasures. 
 Curiously, George Moore does no more than allude to the 
 lustre of this association, as a foil to the notion that Mr. 
 
Yeats's belief in his lineal descent from the great Duke of 
 Ormonde was part of his poetic equipment. All romantic 
 poets, says Moore, have rightly sought illustrious ancestry ; 
 in Mr. Yeats's case the proof being, apparently, the exist- 
 ence in his family of spoons bearing the Butler crest. 
 George Moore, however, has disdained emphasizing the 
 place of that Mirrour of Vertue in Worldly Greatness, 
 sometime Lord Chancellor of England, in the history of 
 his own family; and it is a fair conjecture that had Sir 
 Thomas been executed for promoting the breach with 
 Rome, and not in order (as has been suggested) to make 
 that breach irreparable, some musing upon the Lord 
 Chancellor's fate might have been found in Hail a?id Fare- 
 well. No better starting-point could have been used for 
 his descendant's discussion of Roman Catholicism and its 
 antipathy to literature ; and would not the romantic open- 
 ing of Utopia have attracted the perpetual story-teller of 
 our own day, who is fain to romanticize whatever appeals 
 to his eye or memory ? And surely the strange contrast 
 between Sir Thomas More's own intellectual freedom and 
 his intolerance of religious freedom in others might have 
 appealed to the speculative mind of our novelist. Heresy, 
 says the Lord Chancellor's historian, was naturally hateful 
 to More, and while his mind was too clear to permit him to 
 deceive himself with Anglicanism — how he could I do not 
 know — ^he attached himself with increasing determination 
 to the cause of the Pope and the old faith. Attractive, 
 then, is it to think of George Moore hanging like a dragon- 
 fly over the still, pure pool of his ancestor's mind, for 
 between the two humanists there are curious resemblances 
 and divergencies. George Moore, like the great Chan- 
 cellor, is touched with intolerance and indulgence ; he 
 would burn a contemporary for his stories, but not Verlaine 
 for his morals ; and if the torture of heretics at Chelsea is 
 a charge against Sir Thomas, the dissection of Gill and 
 Plunkett in the neighbouring study of Ebury Street is no 
 
more pitiful. Conscience, in the one as in the other, has 
 urged the executioner ; only, in the latter case, conscience 
 is working through that more fluid and unstable medium, 
 the aesthetic temperament, in which antipathies have more 
 than the strength of principles, and integrity is at the 
 mercy of a beard, an accent, a stutter, a smile, a hand- 
 shake, an idle reminiscence or speculation. ... It is 
 possible to think of a wholly Protestant Sir Thomas More, 
 but since no man may escape the influences of his time 
 even while he moulds it, we cannot easily think of him as 
 indifferent to religion and utterly disengaged from the 
 great question that agitated the England of Henry VIII. 
 But the question of Catholic or Protestant is not an inevit- 
 able preoccupation for our novelist, and indeed it springs 
 from a purely intellectual or aesthetic concern, namely, 
 concern for the development of imaginative literature, 
 which he finds with the suddenness of Revelation to be 
 incompatible with Catholicism. Pity it is, to repeat the 
 lament, that he has not pondered Sir Thomas More's 
 seemingly easy reconciliation of intellectual liberty with 
 religious subordination ; for here he would not be able to 
 resort, as he has done in later instances, to a charge of dis- 
 honesty. Rather would he find a singularly clear case of 
 the persistence of parallel loyalties — loyalty to the intel- 
 lectual spirit and loyalty to external authority; loyalties 
 persisting throughout exaltation and disgrace, and shining 
 with equal brightness on the scaffold which the true friend 
 of Erasmus regarded with a jest. He died as serenely as 
 any of those he had persecuted, as serenely as any — states- 
 man or artist — will die for the idea or the image which is 
 more than his own life. 'After he had subdued them,' 
 writes the author of Utopia, *he made a law that every 
 man might be of what religion he pleased, and might 
 endeavour to draw others to it by the force of argument, 
 and by amicable and modest ways, but without bitterness 
 against those of other opinions.' 
 
6 
 
 If, however, it is a fair conjecture that the rehgious 
 difference prevented George Moore from hovering over 
 the Lord Chancellor's character, it is fair also to remark 
 that Colonel Maurice Moore has not the same reason for 
 abstention ; and it is to him that we owe {An Irish Gentle- 
 man, George Henry Moore, by Colonel Maurice Moore, 
 C.B.) a more explicit reference. It is related, he writes, 
 that a descendant of Sir Thomas More settled in Mayo 
 and acquired lands near Ballina, and it is known that in 
 the time of William of Orange, George Moore of Ballina 
 held the title of Vice-Admiral of Connaught ; his son and 
 grandson were living in Ashbrook, near Straid Abbey, in 
 1717. 
 
 In Colonel Moore's book we find other admirable 
 accounts of the Moores. It seems that the fortunes of 
 the family were established by a George Moore, great- 
 grandfather of the novelist, who ventured into Spain and 
 there became the head of a prosperous Irish colony. He 
 made a great fortune, two hundred and fifty thousand 
 pounds, says our novelist, and married an Irish Spanish 
 woman, one of the refugees from the penal laws. In 
 those days there was great trading with Spain, and gal- 
 leons had once come floating up the bay, their sails filled 
 with sunset. Not only in certain buildings, it is said, but 
 in flesh and blood also are traces of Spain to be found in 
 Galway. ' It amused me,' you read in Vale, ^ to think of 
 the ships laden with seaweed coming round the Bay of 
 Biscay from the Arran Islands to my great-grandfather in 
 Alicante, and the burnt kelp filling the iron chest (still at 
 Moore Hall), and quickly, with ducats, and my great- 
 grandfather returning to Ireland, a sort of mercantile 
 pirate of the Spanish Main.' Looking for a site whereon 
 to build a fine Georgian house, ' he would have built it at 
 Ashbrook if there had been a prospect, but there being 
 none, he bought Muckloon, a pleasant green hill over- 
 looking Lough Carra; and the Colonel mentioned that 
 
our great-grandfather used to sit on the steps of Moore 
 Hall, his eyes fixed on the lake.' The house was built in 
 1780. 'I have travelled far/ he is reported to have said, 
 ' but have seen nothing as beautiful as Lough Carra.' . . . 
 An elderly gentleman in a wig and a scarlet coat — 'it is 
 thus that he is apparelled in the portrait that hangs in the 
 dining-room, painted when and by whom there is no 
 record. In it he is a man of thirty, and when he was 
 thirty he was in Alicante. It is pleasant to have a por- 
 trait of one's ancestor in a wig, and in a vermilion coat 
 with gold lace and buttons, white lace at the collar and 
 cuffs — probably, a Spanish coat of the period. The face 
 is long, sheep-like, and distinguished — the true Moore 
 face as it has come down to us.' 
 
 Who has ever heard, George Moore adds, of a more 
 horrible discovery than to go blind in one's sleep .^^ So 
 it was that his prosperity ended. * On awakening one 
 morning he asked his valet why he had not opened the 
 shutters. The servant answered that he had opened 
 them. "But the room is dark." "No, sir, the room is 
 quite light." " Then I am blind ! " ' The rest of his life 
 was lived between priest and doctor, in terror of death. 
 Our novelist finds a significance in the circumstance of his 
 great-grandfather's burial, for the blind man had desired 
 that he should be buried with his ancestors in the 
 Protestant cemetery near Straid Abbey, but he was buried 
 in the Catholic chapel at Ashbrook. ' The Irish Spaniard, 
 Catholic back, belly and sides, would not have hesitated 
 to ignore her husband's instructions.' She wished, in 
 short, to conceal the fact that she had married a man 
 of such doubtful Catholicity that he had chosen to be 
 buried in a Protestant cemetery. 
 
 John, the eldest son, was concerned in the rising of 
 1798 and joined the French expedition which landed at 
 Killala. After a delusive victory he was elected first 
 President of the Connaught Republic, and when his small 
 
8 
 
 army was overthrown he was only saved by influential 
 friends from a court-martial. Escape was planned, but 
 defeated by his own generosity towards a follower; and 
 he died before his trial began. 
 
 Upon George^ then, the honours and cares of the family 
 fell; and his life also has been illustrated by Colonel 
 Moore and our novelist. He was, it appears, a member of 
 the Holland House circle, a philosopher and historian of 
 the English Revolution and the French Revolution. He 
 married a grand-daughter of the Earl of Altamont, a 
 capable woman to whom he serenely left the conduct of 
 affairs while he pursued a student's life in his library — an 
 agnostic like his master Gibbon, we are told in Vale. He 
 had married his wife in spite of the fact that it was her 
 relation, Denis Browne, who secured the conviction of his 
 brother John. It was on the completion of his sixty-fourth 
 year that he wrote the ' Preface to my Historical Memoirs of 
 the French Revolution, to be Published after my Death.' 
 He left five hundred pounds to defray the expenses of 
 issuing the History, but it was never published. ' Having 
 written a history of the French Revolution, impregnated 
 with all the feelings and sentiments of an Englishman, and 
 written in a style, I hope, purely and thoroughly English, 
 I am ambitious it should be read after me. I have had no 
 celebrity in my life. But a prospect of this posthumous 
 fame pleases me at this moment . . . We are so made 
 that while we are living we think with pleasure that we 
 shall not be forgotten in our deaths.' Is it only in the 
 lineaments of a portrait which may have been painted by 
 Wilkie that the Moore features may be traced ; or is it not 
 equally in the cadence of such sentences as these, in the 
 serene simplicity that intimates and conceals depth, that a 
 likeness between the two George Moores may be noted ? 
 
 Of his three sons the eldest, George Henry, was' born at 
 Moore Hall in 1810, and it is his life that Colonel Moore, 
 as I have already said, relates in An Irish Gentleman. At 
 
seventeen he writes from Oscott College telling his mother 
 of his interest in painting and verse ; he had written a 
 poem of many hundred lines. The Legend of Lough Carra, 
 which he intended offering to Murray or Colborne : and 
 already he had completed Irene in five hundred lines, an 
 Eastern Byronish poem. 'If I could get one hundred 
 pounds from one of the booksellers for the child of my 
 imagination, how happy I should feel in buying you a pair 
 of handsome horses.' Irene was published, but there is no 
 record of the hundred pounds or the horses, nor of the 
 fate of The Legend of Lough Carra^ which at any rate had 
 the prime virtue of dealing with what the author best 
 knew and loved ; for Moore Hall stands just above the 
 edge of the lake, a square Georgian house with a great 
 flight of steps and big pillars supporting a balcony. The 
 house and the lake dominated the young George Henry 
 Moore, as they dominate his son, for whom indeed they 
 have become not merely a memory but a symbol, a 
 figure of recovered or recoverable Eden. Time has not 
 diminished the beauty, for the green slopes, the light and 
 shade holding planetary sway over the miles of water, the 
 bridge, the horses and the men, have emerged as clear as 
 dawn, as soft as noon, as quiet as evening, amid the 
 stealthy, slow deposits of sixty years of reflection. That 
 passage in Vale is famous in which the author recalls his 
 journey to the old home, a journey he was loth to under- 
 take, for he could see the wide long water, and all the 
 slow curves of the bay along Kiltoome and Connor Island, 
 with the mind's eye more clearly than with the bodily eye. 
 Ballinafad, his mother's home, was near by, but it was 
 become a monastery ; why should he see it again } True 
 the old house had not yet been pulled down that cells 
 might be built instead ; in fact, the only change would be 
 a peasant in frock and sandals for a peasant in frieze. 
 Well, the drive from Manulla to Moore Hall would show 
 him the familiar woods of Ballinafad; and so driving he 
 
10 
 
 reanimates the scene. Joe Blake off to Castlebar with his 
 arm round a servant's waist ; the girls at Clogher — Helena, 
 Lizzie, Livy and May — gathering cherries ... he could 
 see the dead girls quite plainly. The trees at Clogher 
 seemed not to have grown a foot in forty years. Disagree- 
 able hazels still hedged Carnacum Lake, and he recalled 
 how once the trees were not wasted as now, for they used 
 to be sold to the coopers at Derrinrush to make barrel- 
 hoops. Endless the stone walls ; country and people were 
 still savage ; and why were there no windmills ? He 
 recalls, too, childish rambles with his governess through 
 the unpathed woods, between silver firs and rowans : once 
 the hillside was dark with adventure and mystery ; and for 
 a while he is a child again, only awakening into the denser 
 air of maturity at the sight of the new gateway which his 
 brother had removed from Newbrook, a handsomer affair 
 even than he had expected to see. Looking for a tall 
 laburnum, whose slim slippery body had defied his legs as 
 a boy, he could not find it, but it still lived in his memory 
 of Moore Hall ; so, again, did the lost hawthorns and lilac 
 bush, among which he had played at Red Indians. There, 
 where the lilac bush was once large and leafy, he had 
 thrown himself down, and discovered, it seemed, how to 
 be happy ; but the next day — he remembered it all now — 
 he had asked Joseph Applely why he no longer wanted to 
 crack his whip, hide in the lilac bush or roll in the hay ? 
 What Joseph Applely replied can only be imagined. Tree 
 after tree was gone now, lilac and laburnum. But the 
 house? the steps alone were to his taste, for he liked 
 brick, and houses that had grown generation after genera- 
 tion. Nor did he like plate glass, and he thought that it 
 ever he should live in Moore Hall he must have the 
 windows refurnished with the old hand-made glass with 
 rings in every pane. 
 
 It was a much experiencing and much remembering 
 man that made the visit described in Vale, and when he 
 
11 
 
 reached the house the old fondness for it seized him ; the 
 whole passage showing how gravely and clearly the in- 
 stinctive, profound past beats bell-like and soft upon the 
 rounded consciousness which is George Moore's present. 
 Going over the house with his brother, meditating upon 
 changes accomplished and dreamed of, upon the Adam 
 ceiling, the open yard, the bathroom that had once been 
 his father's dressing-room (the sight of which at once 
 recalls George Henry Moore to him and to us as vividly as 
 aiiy passage in An Irish Gentleman), he confesses that he 
 would not have had the courage to make those changes, 
 so real is the memory of his father sitting in the room; or 
 standing shaving while the small George talked and 
 watched. It was on such an occasion that his father 
 asked him to read aloud from Burke, from an edition 
 printed with long s's : and when the boy stumbled over 
 these, as indeed he would do even now, his father, 
 stricken like one who found his son suddenly blind or 
 dumb, appealed to the child's mother and governess : — 
 Was there ever another child of seven who could not read 
 Burke without faltering over the long s*s ? He averred 
 (and sincerely believed), his face still lathered, that he 
 had been accustomed to reading the Times aloud to his 
 mother at breakfast at the age of three. For days there- 
 after child and governess were banished to the schoolroom 
 to read Lingard, listening apprehensively when Applely 
 brushed the master's hat, and breathing lightly only when 
 the hall-door told that he had gone to the stables. And 
 now he could feel not his father's ghost alone, but his 
 grandfather's also animating the rooms : was it not for 
 that reason that Moore Hall had always seemed strange 
 and ' preoccupied ' } No new influence had touched the 
 house since 1870, and he would never be able to live in 
 it; for he would always feel his grandfather sitting by 
 him and wondering that his grandson should practise a 
 prose style so familiar, so unlike Gibbon's. 
 
12 
 
 ' My father was too near the Georgian period to appre- 
 ciate the house/ he murmured to his brother. An Irish 
 Gentleman tells of that father, and if it says little of the 
 literary powers which he transmitted to his eldest son, 
 the latter is yet sensible of them ; wondering how it was 
 that his father could so indifferently destroy the letters in 
 which his travels in the East were related. Maria Edge- 
 worth advised the publication of these records of travel, 
 saying that the man who could write such letters could 
 write anything he pleased and become famous. Fame 
 teased him not, and he remained, in his eldest son's 
 opinion, singularly unconscious of the literary power that 
 lay half kindled within him. He did not love literature 
 for its own sake, and George Moore's sense of this lack 
 caused separation between father and son. Why not 
 make a book out of these } asked his wife ; but he threw 
 the letters into the fire, packet by packet, for he never 
 wanted to look at them again. There were drawings, too, 
 in his diaries, drawings of women, and camels with long, 
 shaggy, bird-like necks, tufted and callous hides, ' bored 
 ruminants, the Nonconformists of the four-footed world.' 
 In these precise outlines there is a delicacy, a beauty 
 which betrays the skill of a wise hand. Letters, diaries 
 and sketches alike had their roots in romance. He was 
 but twenty-two when his mother became aware of a secret 
 love which he could not conceal nor she approve ; she 
 adjured him to leave England, and in 1832, declaring that 
 he would never marry — never ! he removed for five months 
 to Brussels. Not long after his return to England he 
 resolved to travel in the East, and it is the pre facer who 
 tells us in An Irish Gentleman that it was for love of a lady 
 that his father turned to travel, and for love of him that 
 she followed with her husband. For two years his diary 
 was forgotten, and it speaks again only to bewail the loss 
 of the lady. He wandered in Russia, through the Cau- 
 casus, into Persia, Egypt, Syria and Greece ; showing in 
 
13 
 
 the surviving pages of his diary the instinctive power of 
 phrasing which he drew from his father and passed on to 
 his son. He speaks of sweet and solemn reveries, of 
 burning dreams, of immortal hours, in passages that are 
 noticeably echoing, their music magnified or diminished, 
 in the last pages of Memoirs of My Dead Life. 
 
 When he returned to England he was still but twenty- 
 seven and disposed to fashion his life on the model of his 
 father's; and when the historian died, in 1840, George 
 Henry Moore devoted himself wholly to hunting and 
 riding. Not until 1846, his brother Augustus having been 
 killed in a racing accident and famine smiting the country, 
 did he halt and throw himself with the same impetuosity 
 into relief work, the building of a monastery and so on to 
 the bewildering, rootless and fruitless life of party politics. 
 He had already won a seat in Parliament when he married 
 Mary Blake, in 1851, but after political disappointments 
 which need not be mentioned here, he resumed the acti- 
 vities of a country gentleman. Colonel Moore tells of 
 many of the incidents from which his brother has spun 
 shining webs of imagination and fancy ; and to him is due 
 the precise sketch of Joseph Applely, prototype of the 
 mysterious, pathetic Mr. Leopold of Esther Waters, already 
 secretive and abstruse, presented by nature as a finished 
 model to her artist. It was once our author's luck (he 
 writes in Vale) to be thrown three times before breakfast, 
 the falls irritating his father, who declared to Applely that 
 no horse could unseat him ; but next morning the boast 
 was avenged, for he too fell and broke his collar-bone. 
 
 Of his father our novelist speaks with detachment 
 touched with affection. He writes of his death in 1870 as 
 he might tell of the death of an extraordinarily well 
 realised character in a book, saying that he died of a 
 broken heart, and that he would like to believe that it 
 was by suicide, in the Roman fashion ; an inclination which 
 Colonel Moore has refused to support. ' This tragic death,' 
 
14 
 
 he adds, ' seems the legitimate end of a brave life ; and in 
 my brother's book he appears as wonderful as any character 
 invented by Turgenev.' The phrase is written some forty 
 years after the event, but is it not characteristic that the 
 death of his father affects him imaginatively, and precisely 
 as the death of Grandet or Bazarov might affect him ? 
 
 It is in Vale that the simplest and frankest account of 
 the death and the days following the death of George 
 Henry Moore is found. His eldest son describes the 
 journey and his own sensations, speaking aloud the 
 thoughts which most of us rebuke into snake-like stillness ; 
 adding, ' We never grieve for anybody as we should like 
 to grieve, and are always shocked at our own absent- 
 mindedness.' 
 
 ' I remember nothing till somebody came into the 
 summer-room to tell my mother that if she wished to 
 see him again she must come at once, for they were 
 about to put him into his coffin, and catching me by 
 the hand, she said, " We must say a prayer together." 
 
 * The dead man lay on the very bed in which I was 
 born, his face covered with a handkerchief, and as my 
 mother was about to lift it from his face the person 
 who had brought us thither warned her from the 
 other side of the white dimity curtains not to do so. 
 
 '" He is changed." 
 
 '"I don't care," she cried, and snatched away the 
 handkerchief, revealing to me the face all changed. 
 And it is this changed face that lives unchanged in 
 my memory.' — 
 
 'The one pure image in my mind, the one true 
 affection,' he exclaims of his father, in the heightened 
 prose of the Confessions. 
 
 Pride of family is the commonest and pleasantest of 
 frailties. George Moore, who has become so acutely 
 sensible of the difference between himself and his con- 
 temporaries, and loves to assert a no less marked distinction 
 between himself and his brother, is not without the 
 
15 
 
 common pride. Men are seldom reluctant to recall, to 
 exalt, to illustrate the casual eminence of their ancestry ; 
 conspicuous beauty, wealth, courage and intelligence — 
 these, and in this order, are the chief gratifications of a 
 reverie over recent generations. It is sometimes with 
 an envious, sometimes with a humorous sigh that they 
 recount old splendour and excellence ; even if, for 
 instance, it is a sigh over the wealth that enriched not 
 me but the British and Foreign Bible Society. And 
 Moore is intimately aware of his father's and grandfather's 
 part in him. The instinct for letters that distinguished 
 the grandfather, the restless passion for experience that 
 marked the father, are in him intensified and enlarged. 
 The quiet instinct becomes energetic, the restless passion 
 is new-winged with imagination and becomes vicariously 
 active. He calls himself pagan, but that is, at least in 
 part, an intellectual delusion ; and he is at times so sharply 
 concerned with religion, with religion in its personal aspect 
 only less than in its social and aesthetic issues, that it is 
 hard to forget that he comes, as he loves to repeat, of a 
 merely shallow-rooted Catholicism. 
 
 And like another father and mother is the Mayo land- 
 scape — the lonely face of field and lake, the soft, green- 
 breasted country, the trees of the woods and the reflected 
 water-trees, the landscape of which, reading in almost any 
 of the later books, you will say — a Corot ! a Moore ! so 
 finely has it impressed itself in those admired paintings 
 and in this prose. The movement of the prose, the undu- 
 lations never wandering past control, the unheightened 
 and unlapsing phrasing, the colour and the quietness, the 
 simplicity, the depth, the brightness — all these, the mere 
 names of qualities, as trees are mere names of mysteries, 
 are the artist's rendering in his proper medium of that 
 which his youth has breathed, and which was in his veins 
 before consciousness awoke. Supremely interested in 
 himself, he is therefore interested in his progenitors. 
 
16 
 
 although without the egoism of regarding them as his 
 precursors ; and the tendency to reverie over childhood, 
 which his later books reveal, is directed almost as much 
 towards his father and grandfather as towards the infant 
 George. The mind of a pure artist is not to be tethered 
 nor its flight foretold ; and if it be said that this reverting 
 of the eyes to youth was not to be expected from the 
 creator of Esther Waters and the author of Evelyn Innes, I 
 can but answer that it is none the less natural and uncon- 
 trollable. And who so well as Moore could become an 
 English AksakofF, or to what finer devotion might his 
 powers be yielded ? Aksakoff has clothed with new life 
 his father and grandfather, and called out of the mist his 
 own early years ; and might not George Moore, who has 
 so often touched the personalities of two generations, and 
 himself admires so justly the portrait of A Russian Gentle- 
 man, enrich our literature with its first complete history ot 
 a family, and include such an account of his own childhood 
 and youth as made AksakoiF's Years of Childhood precious ? 
 Strange it is that this kind of imaginative chronicle, a form 
 in which the English genius might find unique liberty, 
 should have been so long neglected in England. The 
 literality of Defoe has passed away without stimulating a 
 higher faculty in his successors ; and few indeed are the 
 attempts in a higher direction. Ruskin's Praeterita, and 
 Mr. Gosse's insufficiently appreciated Father and Son, are 
 isolated instances of what may be achieved ; and for the 
 rest } — Even the narrowest form of autobiography is 
 shunned, except by those anecdotal writers who have 
 nothing significant to reveal. I think of Tolstoi and 
 Gorki, of Rousseau and Goethe, and I wish in vain for an 
 emulous zeal in England. All that another may tell is as 
 nothing compared with what an imaginative artist may 
 tell of himself. St. Augustine has quickened our minds 
 with those touches which reveal what most we need to 
 know — those episodes, of thought or action, which make 
 
17 
 
 him a man of like passions to our own, and thus he too is 
 among the imaginative company of those that have revealed 
 themselves ; but wanting that revelation, what could his 
 personality count for in our own day ? It is by his own 
 story of his life that that life has been prolonged. 
 
 George Moore has made free with the character of 
 others — you may charge it equally as a fault and a virtue, 
 according as your attitude is individual or social, aesthetic 
 or moral — and no less candid concerning himself; and he 
 seems to me superbly gifted for such a creative task as 
 others in English letters have ignored or too briefly 
 attempted. ' Myself,' he says, ' was the goal I was making 
 for instinctively, in those early Paris days ; ' and that 
 preoccupation with personality is among the chief 
 essentials of imaginative autobiography. He has not 
 yet essayed the full desirable task, and his neglect 
 makes it necessary that something of his early life shall 
 be sketched or gathered here, however imperfectly and 
 inadequately. The need is greater since so much that 
 he now writes is called out of the dark backward and 
 abysm of sixty or fifty years ago. 
 
 ' When I was a small child,' he says, ' I used to go with 
 my mother and governess to Carra Castle for goat's milk, 
 and we picnicked in the great banqueting-hall overgrown 
 with ivy.' The memory of those early excursions recalls 
 those he used to see ; Mulhair recognized by his stubbly 
 chin, Pat Plunkett by his voice and Carabine by his eyes, 
 with Applely moving about in his unstarched collar and 
 too-large frock coat. Clothed with mystery are the earliest 
 scenes in a child's life ; and the wonder has hardly 
 decreased as he thinks of the days when he longed to 
 explore the wilderness of rocks at the end of Kingstown 
 Pier, the great clefts frightening and sending him back, 
 ashamed of his cowardice, to where his uncles and cousins 
 sat listening to the band, as Dublin used to do in the 
 
18 
 
 'sixties. One day he was bolder, and after descending 
 into that wilderness returned to tell how he had met the 
 King of the Fairies fishing at the mouth of the cave. But 
 his relations were not interested and thought him a little 
 daft ; and one girl (with wide ugly mouth and loud voice, 
 as he sees her now) laughed harshly, saying, with a touch 
 of prescience, that George could not be taken anywhere, 
 not even to Kingstown Pier, without something wonderful 
 happening. The phrase marks him out for us. Such 
 gibes filled him with shame and he resolved to shun 
 adventures ; but notwithstanding that resolve and subse- 
 quent vows, he has failed to see and hear as the heathen 
 do, and has gone on meeting adventures everywhere. 
 That phrase, again, its truth and its sting, marks him out 
 for us. Characteristic is it that he follows this story with 
 an incident showing how, when walking by the shore 
 with Mr. Yeats and Mr. Edward Martyn, and looking at 
 the sea moving against the land's side like a soft feline 
 animal, he and he alone saw three girls advancing into the 
 water, lifting their skirts high and laughing invitingly ; 
 the boldest showing thighs whiter and rounder than any. 
 A shy boy, he calls himself elsewhere, and says it is 
 difficult for him to believe any good of himself. And 
 is that lack of belief a gift from nature, or was he trained 
 into it by his parents ? It seems that he can trace his 
 inveterate distrust of himself to the years when his 
 parents used to say that he would certainly marry old 
 Honor King, a beggar woman ; and he came to dread her 
 appearance and even her name, understanding that the 
 joke rested on the assumption that nobody else would 
 marry such an ugly little boy. Happily we need not call 
 for the assistance of the newest psychology in determining 
 the root of this shyness, nor yet to disgust us with an 
 explanation of another incident. It was at the beginning 
 of his childhood that he stole away one morning to St. 
 Stephen's Green, inspired by an unaccountable desire to 
 
19 
 
 break the monotony of infancy by stripping himself of 
 his clothes, tossing them out of reach, and running naked 
 in front of his nurse or governess, screaming the while 
 with delight. Had he not moralized the incident the 
 temptation to do so would be irresistible now : — was 
 the visit to Ireland, which was to produce Hail and 
 Farewell, anything more than a desire to break the 
 monotony of his life by stripping himself again and 
 running, a naked Gael, screaming Brian Boru ? There 
 is nobody, he adds again, that amuses one as much as 
 oneself. The incident illustrates my theme, and the 
 comment increases the impatience of the cry, Why does 
 not Mr. Moore write his autobiography? He had, even 
 as a child, a curious and probing mind. He and his 
 brother once built a children's house high up in a beech 
 tree. A quarrel arose concerning the building, and to get 
 his own way George pretended not to believe that his 
 brother loved him, and so caused Maurice to burst into 
 tears ; whereupon, the elder's curiosity being provoked, 
 he tried to think of what could make his brother cry 
 again ; but alas, the gibe was blunted upon his brother's 
 indifference. Looking back upon the trifle after fifty 
 years, the author of Salve cries. As detestable in the 
 beginning as in the end! And thinking how (unlike 
 the Colonel) he partook of a boy's cruelty and hunted 
 the laundry cats with dogs, no one corrected him, he 
 muses, no one reproved him ; and so he grew up a 
 wilding. 
 
 Perhaps we shall do well not to regard this statement 
 too narrowly, but there was a happy wilding time when 
 his father's Croagh Patrick, a famous brown horse, won the 
 Stewards' Cup. George Henry Moore and his wife went 
 with the horse to Goodwood, while the small eldest son, 
 who had watched the horse in his last gallops at Cliffs 
 before the race, stayed behind among the stable-boys to 
 enjoy liberty and become familiar with that world which 
 
20 
 
 was to contribute so much to the excellence of Esther 
 Waters. Truly Irish carelessness, says Colonel Moore in 
 speaking of the surrender of his brother to the stables ; 
 but we shall not regret it. Nobody looked after this 
 ' little kid of nine,' riding as he pleased about the country, 
 until one day his liberty was ended. It was through the 
 success of a horse named Master George that Master 
 George was snatched from the horses and sent to school ; 
 such, the Colonel remarks, are the ways of Providence, 
 calling them nevertheless devious. It is the wittiest 
 phrase in his story of An Irish Gentleman. Other 
 winners came out of the stables, and one racing historian, 
 recounting them, hazards the remark that George Henry 
 Moore would probably have disinherited his son had he 
 foreseen the writing of such a book as Esther Waters. 
 Providence, it seems, failed to prompt the novelist's 
 father; but, indeed, Esther Waters might have been 
 written by a disinherited son, and was actually written by 
 an impoverished son. 
 
 The merest tantalizing crumbs of memories of horses 
 and hunting are given in Hail and Farewell, shedding 
 brightness on the story of the days that were ended with 
 school. There was, for example, a race-meeting at 
 Castlebar or some neighbouring town, with old men in 
 knee-breeches and tall hats, young men in trousers, 
 cattle-dealers in great overcoats reaching to their heels, 
 wearing broad-brimmed hats, everybody with a wide Irish 
 grin on his face, and everybody with his blackthorn. 
 Especially was there a crowd watching a bucking chest- 
 nut, a sixteen-hands horse with a small boy in pink on his 
 back. Now the horse, says Moore, looking on again with 
 the eyes of a child, hunches himself up till he seems like 
 a hillock ; his head is down between his legs, his hind 
 legs are in the air, but he doesn't rid himself of his 
 burden. He plunges forward, he rises up, coming down 
 again, his head between his legs; and the boy, still 
 
21 
 
 unstirred, recalls the ancient dream of the Centaur. — 
 Bedad, the greatest rider in Ireland. 
 
 But while the fight between horse and jockey yet 
 waged, George Henry Moore rode up threatening the 
 crowd ; if the course was not cleared he would ride in 
 among them on a great bay stallion. Master George 
 himself felt the pangs of fear as he looked on, for even 
 then a peasant's life was counted valuable. And it 
 seemed that his father was very cruel to the poor boy 
 whose horse would not keep quiet. . . . An equally vivid 
 character is cousin Dan — Dan, in his long yellow 
 mackintosh, and tall silk hat covering the long white 
 skull ribboned by a single lock of black hair ; the same 
 long skull that George Moore has inherited, a long pale 
 face, and long, delicate woman's hands. Craft and 
 innocency were mingled strangely in Dan's face — by 
 heaven ! a Moore face truly previsioned, you might cry, 
 looking from that to this. Dan has his secure place in 
 Hail and Farewell, and is indeed the occasion of a justifi- 
 cation which our author usually disdains to give. To the 
 question. If you respect your family so much, why do you 
 unscarf Dan's frailties ? he replies : ' If I did not do so, I 
 should not think of Dan at all ; ' and what we dread most 
 is to be forgotten. . . . Dan's love of his Bridget was what 
 was best in him and what was most like him. Our 
 interest in Dan is not lessened by knowing that the 
 writing of A Mummer s Wife was associated with him, 
 with Galway, and a riding horse which Dan lent Moore 
 — a great, black, should erless beast. 
 
 But Oscott interrupted the early familiarities. That a 
 boy should remember the first sight of his school is not 
 surprising, but it is faintly surprising that he should note 
 now the seeming heartlessness with which he met his father 
 and mother when they bade him good-bye. They were 
 shocked, but he could only think of the boys who wanted 
 to make his acquaintance ; a phrase which betrays an early 
 
22 
 
 sense of importance in a child of nine. Before the end of 
 his first meal he had become a school character, and 
 thought it a fine thing to offer to match himself against 
 the smallest boy present in the play-room. George was 
 beaten. ... Is it not a familiar story he tells, of a child of 
 nine rising at half-past six and getting beaten if he was 
 late for Mass ? Looking back, he perceives in others not 
 the faintest recognition of the fact that he was but a baby, 
 and he does not pretend now, as men so often pretend in 
 later years, that the hard life was good for him. 'The 
 injustice, the beastliness of that place — is it possible to 
 forget it.'*' When his parents visited him they found 
 the high-spirited child changed into a frightened little 
 coward, blubbering for home ; but he remained at Oscott 
 until his health yielded to cold and hunger and floggings. 
 Two years at Moore Hall followed, the best part of his 
 childhood, with long days on the lake and bird-nesting in 
 the woods, and the unconscious laying-up of treasures for 
 discovery later on. He could learn nothing from tutors, 
 and often asked his mother, Am I really stupid ? without 
 getting a clear answer; and all that an old governess 
 could remember was that he was the most amiable of 
 children. 
 
 It was about this time that he first read Shelley, during 
 a ride of some sixteen miles in a C-springed coach ; rocking 
 about and discovering The Sensitive Plant in a little fat 
 volume with the usual portrait which yielded nothing at 
 all in the world. The name attracted him, as Byron's did 
 also, and he started to read the English poets whose names 
 most pleased him. Readers of Avowals will remember 
 that Kirk White was an early choice. The desired parcel 
 arrived, and he could scarce find patience to open it ; but 
 a line or two was enough, and he read no more that day 
 nor any other. Shelley became the god of his idolatry. 
 He was able to take the book to Oscott, reading it in 
 secret while others were at lessons — they at heaven knows 
 
23 
 
 what, George Moore at Queen Mab. No wonder he learned 
 nothing at Oscott ; no wonder that his father was angered 
 at his backwardness ; no wonder that Shelley has remained 
 the chief of his few poets. Salve tells us that the edition 
 of Shelley which he took to Oscott explained that The 
 Revolt of Islam was but a revised version of Laon and 
 Cythna ; and that one day, coming from the refectory, he 
 said to the prefect that he had brought Shelley with him 
 and, reading it constantly, had begun to wonder if it was 
 wrong; for Shelley denied the existence of God. The 
 book was taken from him — a sacrifice designed to purchase 
 the blessing of expulsion, but a vain sacrifice. It was another 
 matter that played a chief part in his leaving, the in- 
 nocentest of innocent affairs with a little housemaid, the 
 only thing he could think of to break the monotony of the 
 Oscott day. A scruple of conscience harassed him and he 
 wrote to his father freely, saying that if the girl was sent 
 away he would have no peace and would be obliged to 
 marry her. Promptly did his father gallop off to Clare- 
 morris to catch a train, and then descending, unexpected, 
 upon the school, drew with his gentle manner and em- 
 barrassingly clear eyes all the queer little story, and the 
 threat which was not meant seriously. The young novelist, 
 you surmise, had been dramatizing a personal incident and 
 his own character, as children and their elders almost 
 equally love to do, and slyly exploiting it. He sees 
 himself even in those times just as he has ever been, very 
 provident about his own life, and determined to make the 
 most of it. The girl was not to be dismissed and this 
 prefatory Memoir of My Dead Life remained a mere 
 sketch, a hint, a dramatic titillation ; ah, but there was 
 something far more serious, and his father's eyes lost their 
 kindness as he asked : ' George, is it true that you have 
 refused to go to confession ? ' It was true : he had found 
 nothing to confess, even after the excellent stimulus of 
 a flogging. His father agreed with the priest that there 
 
24 
 
 were always sins to confess for him who chooses to seek, 
 and the subtle boy was pressed into tiny admissions. . . . 
 Was ever anything funnier ? George Moore being brought 
 to confess willy-nilly — George Moore, whose whole life 
 has been an explicit, unchecked confession, and who may 
 indeed be thought to have exceeded the demand of the 
 most exigent confessional in the world ! 
 
 The boy's resources were yet deeper : how could he 
 confess when he doubted confession ? And was that doubt 
 a fault in him ? And dare he communicate when in doubt ? 
 Why, the priest himself was not always a believer. After 
 a while, father and son drove to Birmingham and talked 
 of — Shelley. His father had but a moderate admiration 
 for Shelley — ' Why do you waste your time learning bad 
 verses .'' ' — but liked the opening of Queen Mab. A religious 
 discussion followed and the boy's admiration of his father's 
 intelligence declined from that moment, even while his 
 sense of kindness increased. . . . George returned to 
 Oscott for the rest of the term, but was forbidden to speak 
 to his school -fellows. He enjoyed this outlawry, but the 
 pleasantest moment of all was when he asked permission 
 to say good-bye ; and so he left in flying colours, or at 
 least flying the colours he wished to fly. More than forty 
 years after he recalls this affair, saying that he ' discovered ' 
 himself to be a Protestant and proclaimed his religious 
 conviction (or shall we say the absence of a religious 
 conviction ?) to his parents : and while they did not oppose 
 his claim to share the faith of his ancestors, they did not 
 help him to attain it. And he will add to this now by 
 saying simply : I couldn't breathe in Catholicism. 
 
 So ended Oscott. He had learned nothing there ; and 
 never was he able to learn anything he did not want 
 to learn ; such things remain dead to him — as now. He 
 was to suffer for many years from the helplessness of 
 an overgrown ignorance, and from the sharp perception 
 of th^^t most distressing affliction, literary clumsiness. One 
 
25 
 
 living intellectual interest was noticeable in the recalci- 
 trant, and it is recalled in Ave as he thinks of the priest 
 of Carnacun, tall, gaunt, large-nosed with tufted nostrils ; 
 and of that day in the 'sixties when the priest came to 
 Moore Hall in ragged cassock and battered biretta with 
 McHale's Irish Homer, saying that the Archbishop had 
 caught the Homeric ring. But was the Irish better than 
 the Greek ? Reluctantly the priest answered no, and 
 read some eight or ten lines of the Greek. The discussion 
 gave the priest an interest in the boy, and it was soon 
 arranged that Father James should teach him Latin. The 
 name Propertius attracted him : might he read Propertius ? 
 For aid he studied Caesar diligently for a month : — in six 
 months could he get enough Latin to read Propertius? 
 It would take many years. But one day the priest said 
 that the time would come when George Moore would give 
 up hunting and everything for the classics. His mother, 
 hearing her elated son repeating this prophecy, burst out 
 laughing ; and George surprisingly adopted her casual 
 attitude without question, emulation was slain by a look, 
 and the young scholar hardly ever saw Father James 
 again, except at Mass. . . . No, it is not surprising if you 
 remember his simple and sincere avowal of a great disbelief 
 in himself. 
 
 When he left Oscott he found Moore Hall a stable, for 
 his father was training racehorses ; and as he has so often 
 done since, George Moore adopted the first ideal to hand, 
 as he calls it in his early prose ; a phrase which he found 
 strangely endurable nearly twenty years later. He rode 
 and hunted and aspired to fame as a steeplechase rider. 
 What saved him but his father's political aspiration, and 
 its fruition in a return to Parliament in 1868 ? The home 
 was broken up and George perforce gave up racing in 
 Ireland for idleness and art in London. 
 
 It was from meeting Jim Browne, ' a great blonde man,' 
 
26 
 
 who painted and talked about luxurious women, and from 
 that florid painter's opinion of the boy's sketches, that 
 George Moore received both impulse and discouragement 
 in art. Humbled but aspiring he would follow his father 
 through the National Gallery, and attend evening classes 
 at South Kensington, vexed that his subaltern brother 
 should accompany him. His father must have been 
 ashamed of his queer, erratic son, he surmises, for we all 
 want our children to be respectable though we may not 
 wish to be respectable ourselves. . . . He does not 
 proceed to the reason, namely, that we do not credit 
 our children with the courage which dictates and supports 
 our small unconventionalities, and instinctively want to 
 shelter them in the uniform of the world. 
 
 Hence it was, presumably, that his father concluded 
 that George must be got into the army if the army would 
 receive him ; and it was settled that as Juries was eminent 
 above all men in getting impossible boys through rudi- 
 mentary examinations, Juries should exert his thaumaturgy 
 upon George Moore. At that time, we learn, anything — 
 even Mrs. Juries — was capable of awaking an erotic 
 suggestion ; but no stimulus to military study was strong 
 enough to touch him. So self-conscious a youth was not 
 likely to be even half in love with easeful anonymous death 
 on a battlefield ; and never has the mind of our author 
 been reducible to a formula. It seemed to him that 
 himself was his country, but wanting an alternative, for 
 all professions were repugnant, he was fain to accept the 
 army. But he realized that he could not be put into 
 the army without passing examinations, and the Sportsman 
 helped him to avoid passing. His sporting predilections 
 brought him into touch with betting and racing men and 
 their sumptuous mistresses ; for we are speaking of fifty 
 years ago. But what would happen to George, thus 
 neglectful and uncontrolled? The sudden death of his 
 father in the spring of 1870 suspended the answer. 
 
27 
 
 His mother would have liked to linger by his father's 
 grave, but he gave her no peace, urging a return to 
 London : * We cannot spend our lives here going to 
 Kiltoome with flowers.' An atrocious boy with engaging 
 manners, is his note upon himself, and he adds that his 
 mother died believing him to have been the best of sons, 
 although he never sacrificed his convenience to hers. I 
 cannot determine precisely the value of phrases like 
 these, but even an atrocious boy may be humanized by 
 regrets. Regrets, however, do not seem to have pleaded 
 urgently for utterance. 
 
 The return to London was made memorable by his 
 forsaking Juries for the drawing-class of one Barthe, to 
 which Whistler was a considerable attraction. The glimpse 
 of Whistler does not please, and clearly is not meant to 
 please; and Moore preferred to ally himself with a 
 smaller celebrity, Oliver Madox Brown. . . . The story 
 flows or eddies on with incidents of riding and shooting 
 and the application of a nickname, Mr. Perpetual, due to 
 his admission, or claim, of being always in love. ^ To be 
 ridiculous has always been mon petit luxe,' but I am sure 
 he has never seemed ridiculous to himself, and he knows 
 that only the pompous are truly ridiculous. Hence, I 
 suppose, even a party of officers and ladies — a-stench with 
 Victorianism — ending in an affray with sword and poker, 
 is not really ridiculous; nor the notion of wearing for 
 painting-robe the tea-gown of one of those ladies until 
 Jim Browne ordered him to discard it. At Jim Browne's 
 heels the future author of Helo'ise and Ahelard would 
 swing along Piccadilly, Jim laughing at the lad's assertion 
 that his hair was yellower than his friend's ; and strange, 
 and indeed thrice strange, is it to think of George Moore 
 modelling himself upon Jim Browne, in both inward and 
 outward aspects, learning his tastes in food and the looks 
 of women and lap-dog loves (the story is a trifle tiresome 
 even in Vale), and obsequious to his dictation in art. So 
 
38 
 
 humble was his obedience that for years and years he 
 followed Jim's fondness for tall women with abundant 
 bosoms, although in reality he liked hardly any, a gentle 
 swelling being enough for his youthful austerity. 
 
 But Jim Browne's influence was suspected by George 
 Moore's guardian, and Jim was driven to moralizing, and 
 urged his friend to shoot in Africa or Abyssinia or seek 
 the source of the Nile. The appeal found no response, 
 and the source of the Nile slumbered on in unvexed 
 obscurity. It was for art that he thirsted, and at last 
 Jim said, ' If you want to learn painting you must go to 
 France.' The call to France is variously related in the 
 Confessions and in Vale, for the later book dispenses with 
 the supernatural agency which, in the earlier account, was 
 needed to dispatch him to Paris. He experienced, he 
 says in Confessions of a Young Man, the phenomenon of 
 echo-augury, words spoken in an unlooked-for quarter; 
 and without appeal to reason they impelled belief. The 
 echoing of one word, France, convinced him that he must 
 go to France and become French. A more conspicuous 
 and valuable instance of the Pauline phenomenon is 
 recalled in Hail and Farewell, and may be noted later. 
 
 For a while he still hung back, disobedient to the 
 heavenly echo. He was heir to a considerable property, 
 and divined all that money meant. Lake, mountains, and 
 woods uttered but one word — Self, the Self upon whose 
 creation his mind was resolved ; truly a poignant psycho- 
 logical moment. Self was to be created, expressed and 
 nourished by art; and he was eighteen, with life and 
 France to come. Art dominated all. Shelley had made 
 him an atheist, and he is amusing in his account of a 
 declaration to his mother that he declined to believe in 
 God. He had expected to paralyse the household, but 
 his mother shocked him with the indifference of her tone 
 — 'I am sorry, George, it is so.' It is odd to read in 
 Confessions of a Young Man that the author hungered after 
 
29 
 
 great truths, the reading of Middlemarch and The History 
 of Civilization being among his remembered spiritual 
 moments. He preserves a different touch of the Victorian, 
 again, when he writes that while he waited for his coach 
 to take a party of ' tarts ' and ' mashers ' to the Derby, 
 he would read a chapter of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. 
 He loved the abnormal, it seems, the self-conscious artist 
 in him already fingering the tangled threads of person- 
 ality. He boasted of fictitious dissipations, and his mother 
 expected ruin ; but ruin passed harmless beneath George 
 Moore*s windows as, standing there in the morning 
 twilight, he watched the moon and repeated Shelley 
 and dreamed of Paris. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 A SENSITIVE PLANT 
 
I can never mutinie so much against France but 
 I must needes looke on Paris with a favourable 
 eye : It hath my hart from infancy, whereof it hath 
 befalne me as of excellent things. ... So long as 
 she shall continue, so long shall J never want a 
 home or retreat to retire and shrowd my selfe at 
 all times : a thing able to make me forget the 
 regret of all other retreates. — Montaigne. 
 
AN Irishman must fly from Ireland if he would be 
 himself, Moore writes in 1911, when he begins 
 to think of the soul he had lost in Paris and London, 
 wondering if it is indeed true that whoever casts off 
 tradition is like a tree transplanted into uncongenial soil. 
 But in 1888 such questioning was impossible, for the ten 
 years spent in France were still intoxicatingly remem- 
 bered ; and he notes that the most impressionable time 
 of his life, from twenty to thirty, when mind and senses 
 are awake, he, the most impressionable of beings, passed 
 in France. Nor was it as an alien or an indifferent 
 spectator, for he strove to identify himself with his 
 environment and, shaking himself free from race and 
 language, sought deliberately to recreate himself in the 
 womb of a new nationality. Time slowly — yes, quite 
 slowly — revealed the failure, but George Moore himself 
 was half deceived into thinking it a success. Confessions 
 of a Young Man gives the measure of that failure in its 
 most immediate light, as well as the frank story of the 
 desperate attempt. To his mother he had avowed that 
 it was for education that he meant to go to Paris, rather 
 than Oxford or Cambridge ; he thought he could educate 
 himself better in a cafe than in a university. 
 
 It was in art that his immersion was complete and his 
 re-birth accomplished ; and the tale of that long-proceed- 
 ing change is luckily available. With trunks of clothes, 
 books, pictures and an English valet, he started for Paris ; 
 the valet, Mullowny, becoming very soon the one super- 
 fluity of all these. Had Moore been an artist already 
 he would not have suppressed the valet, but used him 
 for delicious Chorus in the Comedy of Paris ; but it is only 
 D 33 
 
34 
 
 the mature artist that sees the material nearest to his 
 hand. The valet might have been at least as much to 
 his master as is Alec to his auditor in A Story -T eller s 
 Holiday. The chance slipped away unperceived, and 
 George Moore by his Valet remains an imaginary fragment 
 of biography. Mullowny, sick for home, wife, beer and 
 conversation, counselled his master to return to England, 
 and when the advice was refused, left him at the end 
 of eight months ; and Moore was glad to lose him. A 
 valet meant conformity to conventions, but the young 
 man who sets out on the great adventure of art must 
 separate himself from all conventions ; and he realized 
 that Mullowny stood between George Moore and the 
 artist. Above all he was twenty-one and wished to be 
 himself, and he felt that to be himself he must live the 
 physical as well as the intellectual life of the Quarter. 
 So adroitly is a confession insinuated into the story of 
 Vak. 
 
 His first business, then, was the discovery of a cafe 
 where the evenings could be passed. Was it instinct 
 or chance — was it another echo-augury — that brought 
 him news of the cafe in which Manet spent his evenings ? 
 The Nouvelle Athenes sounded in his ears as though 
 invented to lure him ; I can see it now, he cries, the white 
 nose of a block of buildings, stretching up the hillside 
 into the Place Pigalle opposite the fountain. His retro- 
 spective glance in 1921 is as fond as it was in 1904, 
 when he first revised the Confessions, or in 1888, when 
 the book was first issued. He mixed, he says, with 
 many men at the Nouvelle Athenes, with Manet, Degas, 
 Pisarro, Renoir and Sisley, and once or twice talked to 
 Monet there. . . . M have not the least idea why they 
 endured me. One thing I learned, and that was from 
 Monet, who taught me to be ashamed of nothing except 
 being ashamed ; yet who knows } ' he will add (and again 
 
35 
 
 it is the note of 1921), 'perhaps that was not learned, 
 but lay in me all the time.* 
 
 The writers among the group into which he was so 
 suddenly and so deeply plunged were doubtful of their 
 own art, and envied the art of the painter ; and homage 
 was paid to the painters as they trooped or sidled in. 
 He recalls his longing to be admitted to their intimacy, 
 and especially his shy regard for Manet, whom he had 
 begun to recognize as the great new force in painting. 
 Evening after evening he sat silent until at last Manet, 
 observing him correcting proofs or pretending to correct 
 proofs, asked if the cafe talk did not distract his atten- 
 tion : receiving then for answer, ' Not at all, I was 
 thinking of your painting.' Friendship followed, and in 
 the studio in the rue d'Amsterdam he came to understand 
 the real, the Parisian Manet within the blonde, amusing 
 face and clear eyes — face, beard and nose almost satyr-like, 
 but with an intellectual expression. Bad art, he muses, 
 reveals no personality, and is bad because it is anonymous ; 
 the work of the great artist is himself, and Manet was 
 one of the greatest artists. Manet was a rich man, in dress 
 and appearance an aristocrat ; and for the sake of his 
 genius he was obliged to forsake his own class and spend 
 his evenings in the cafe of the Nouvelle Ath^nes among 
 artists. 
 
 Of Manet's art, and of his almost alone, Moore speaks 
 with unrestrained praise and fondness ; and was it not 
 partly because Manet urged revolt against the old that 
 this younger rebel declared and maintained such a 
 loyalty of admiration ? because ' Adam standing in Eden 
 looking at the sunset was not more naked and unashamed 
 than Manet ' ? A pathetic hint falls across the tribute 
 when he speaks of Renoir and Manet. He suspects 
 Renoir's art of a certain vulgarity, yet Manet's last 
 pictures were influenced by Renoir. Less pathetic, and 
 not less significant, is the fact that Manet never sold a 
 
36 
 
 picture during the years that Moore knew him ; the price, 
 he adds, that one pays for shamelessness, for truth, 
 sincerity, personality, is public neglect. 
 
 But I am wrong to dart thus at Manet, instead of 
 remarking first that Moore approached the Nouvelle 
 Ath^nes circle with no other pretension than the slender 
 one assumed by any disciple in Julien's studio. And 1 
 must remark, also, that the tribute to Manet, like 
 the tribute to others whose names brighten Moore's 
 reminiscence, is not to be found in the Confessions, 
 which immediately reveals the author's sensations and 
 ideas, but in Hail and Farewell ; and the slow emergence 
 of these recognitions is a thing to be pondered over in 
 any account of Moore's mental progress. 
 
 A typical meridional Julien, as Moore found him, 
 with a large stomach, dark, crafty eyes, seductively 
 mendacious manner and sensual mind. Julien consciously 
 made use of his pupil, and the pupil unconsciously made 
 use of Julien. Remember that Moore was twenty and 
 talkative, eager and diffident, that his knowledge of 
 French had been picked up in three months, and you 
 will have a glimpse of the comedy of the situation. 
 The studio exhaled a subtle mental pleasure — the sense 
 of sex; but although that sense was very dear to him, 
 he is explicit in affirming that he did not fall in love, and 
 yet more definite in affirming, with the detachment 
 which has grown in him and helped to make him an 
 artist, that he was willing to stray a little from his path, 
 but never further than a single step, which he could 
 retrace when he pleased. 
 
 Of Julien a fuller and more amusing story is given in 
 Lfipressions and Opinions, and it is necessary to refer to it 
 in order to understand into what strange scholarship the 
 new disciple was inducted. Julien, as Moore came to see 
 him, was the most notorious and powerful personage in 
 the art world of Paris, a dizzy position for a man who was 
 
37 
 
 once a shepherd of extraordinary physical strength, and 
 free to choose between fame as a wrestler and fame as a 
 painter. — No, he did not toss for the decision ; the village 
 settled his future by sending him to Paris, where he 
 pretended just sufficient talent to obscure the truth. 
 Failure as an artist diverted him into the life of a show- 
 man, and at the end of a season's wrestling-matches 
 Julien, as successful as Barnum, had accumulated a small 
 fortune, and as quickly lost it again. Why not, then, 
 open a studio.'* He opened a studio, and strove against 
 envious Fate with small luck until he bethought himself 
 of the power of medals. Since my countrymen love 
 medals, he cried, I will give medals — a medal every 
 month for the best drawing or painting; a medal and 
 a hundred francs. It is not hard to believe that in 
 three months the Salon Julien burst its doors and en- 
 gulfed all Paris ; in three years M. Julien was a limited 
 company, and the late wrestler the managing director 
 at a large fee. The medal had triumphed. That the 
 triumph was not eternal matters nothing; which among 
 human institutions is eternal? The modern Tamerlane 
 had his day. When Moore wrote his account of the 
 rise and fall of the Julien despotism he had escaped 
 from the influence of the salon ; he could even urge 
 upon young English painters the wisdom of staying at 
 home, avowing himself anxious to save them from the 
 commercialism of Julien's studio, and declaring it to be 
 unnecessary for them to learn in Paris. His own ten 
 years were over; he had escaped as by a miracle, and 
 he could not help reviling the prison of French art. He 
 even pleads for insularity, saying that only by being 
 parochial in the first instance may any man's art become 
 ultramontane in the end. It was not the course of his 
 own mind, and the acerbity of his reflections upon Julien 
 is in the main due to his tardy perception that those 
 ten years were wasted. But I think it was also due to 
 
38 
 
 the fact that he could not forgive Julien for thrusting 
 Marshall upon him, as he could not forgive himself for 
 submitting to Marshall. In a moment we shall be con- 
 sidering his ten-years adventure in relation to his calling 
 as a writer, but when he made his attack on the 
 commercialism of French art he had scarcely written a 
 line except in a cosmopolitan prose. 
 
 Henry Marshall (in the revised edition of Confessions of 
 a Young Man he becomes Lewis Ponsonby Marshall) is 
 the bore of the earliest account of Paris days. Would 
 not most readers of the sketch be surprised to know 
 that the name concealed a real person who died some 
 years ago and therefore must have lived ? Maybe Lewis 
 Ponsonby Marshall sat for the portrait of Lewis Seymour, 
 of whose shabbiness his own is a faithful forecast. . . . 
 Perhaps memory, and certainly art, matures with years, 
 and the slightly amplified account of the first meetings 
 between Moore and Marshall is witness to the immense 
 development from the poor skill of Confessions to the 
 mastery of reminiscence which fills Hail and Farewell. 
 Indeed, this is the sole interest by which the unfortunate 
 Marshall survives. He had come from Brussels to Paris 
 with a beautiful prostitute, Alice Howard, who could 
 not refrain from exclaiming as she watched her lover, 
 ' What a toff he is ! ' Not less surely did his manner, 
 his looks, his shallow brightness of talent, captivate 
 the novice who strove to copy his speech and bearing, 
 yet knowing that his own was the rarer nature. But it 
 was no unconscious subordination, for Moore was watching 
 life with the patience of a cat before a mousehole, 
 picking a single phrase out of hours of vain chatter ; 
 he used Marshall as he used all those with whom he 
 was brought into close contact. The avowal was made 
 in 1888, but how much more completely true it is now, 
 every reader will know. Moore's art has always been 
 
39 
 
 concrete rather than aery in its essentials. Yet it is 
 with no contradiction but in absolute candour that he 
 avers that he did not form relationships with designs ; 
 never has he given a thought to the advantage that 
 might accrue from friendship. He read books and 
 friends with an equally disinterested passion, discarding 
 each when he had eaten his hunger away. 
 
 Moore says these things of himself in the revised 
 Confessions^ but in the first edition they were said 
 dramatically in the name of Edwin (once Edward) 
 Dayne, a fact which need not deceive us into ignoring 
 their verisimilitude. . . . He lived at this time in an 
 old-fashioned hotel kept by an enterprising Belgian, 
 and he is at pains to describe his first Parisian friend, a 
 little fat neckless man — Duval in Confessions, Lopez in 
 Vale ; the author of a hundred and sixty plays, not one 
 of which had been produced for twenty years. He had 
 written plays in collaboration with everybody, even 
 with Dumas pere and Gautier, and the mysteries ot 
 collaboration thickened halo-wise around his head as 
 the young stranger questioned him in bad French, out of 
 a rapture of admiration and respect. The significance ot 
 this acquaintance appears when you find later on that 
 these radiant mysteries allured George Moore with the 
 question. Why not write a comedy } No matter that his 
 writing had been a few ill-spelt letters. With Marshall 
 for hero and Alice for heroine, with three weeks' 
 fermentation and the growth of a plot, there remained but 
 one enormous difficulty — how to achieve a prose dialogue } 
 At last he discovered Leigh Hunt's edition of Congreve 
 and other Restoration dramatists, and the fruit of study 
 was a comedy in three acts with the abstract title, 
 Worldliness. A bad play it was, but he thinks not nearly 
 as bad as might be imagined ; and in that, let us assume, 
 lies the reason that his precipitate return to London to 
 get it produced was fruitless. As fruitless was his attempt 
 
40 
 
 with another play, and with a closer view of the em- 
 barrassments of the dramatic writer he returned to Paris. 
 The bibliography will show how often the desire of the 
 theatre has irked him, and I must speak of other plays 
 later on ; here we need but record the attempt and the 
 failure, and the unregretted absence of the early texts. 
 
 From Vale you are permitted to gather that the return 
 to England arose from a pining for London and English 
 food and speech, and his mother's house, where Millais 
 used to visit. Edward Martyn also, he remembers, knew 
 him during the eighteen months of his stay ; and Edward, 
 he declares, is right in saying of him then that he 
 developed from a mere sponge to the vertebrae and up- 
 wards, for in those days he worked and grew unconsciously. 
 But all the while Lewis, in Paris, was still shaping him in 
 London, and when he returned to Paris he was so closely 
 fashioned in his friend's likeness that Julien, catching 
 sight of him on the boulevard, thought it was Lewis 
 himself. Lewis he found plus amoreux que jamais, a young 
 god wallowing in finest linen and in moral depths into 
 which we need not very carefully peer ; we need but note 
 that Moore began to despise him, but nevertheless passed 
 months in his company pursuing art and dissipation. It 
 was to Lewis Marshall or Alice Howard that he owed his 
 acquaintance with la belle Hollandaise, who passed from 
 him with an enigmatic, I don't know what's going to 
 happen to me ! ' She passed out of my life for ever, and 
 if I relate the incident of our meeting it is because I 
 would pay tribute to her who revealed sensuality to me * — 
 a phrase which prompts a question whether our author 
 might not have become a self-sacrificing scientist instead 
 of a self-sacrificing artist. The young men prided them- 
 selves on the versatility with which they used the language 
 of the fence's parlour and the language of the literary 
 salon, and appeared as much at home in the one as in the 
 other. For the true artist, like the false, is a chameleon. 
 
41 
 
 In a terrible slang they shouted benediction upon a plan 
 to break into a crib, and then fancied there was something 
 very thrilling in returning home to dress for a reception 
 among the elite. The story is not entrancing. Art and 
 Marshall's poverty wrought a change. The amorous 
 friend, who always lapsed into extremes, retired to 
 Belleville and settled down as a workman in a china 
 factory ; and Moore went to see him and related the story 
 to Julien. What followed is not recounted in the 1888 
 Confessions J but is inserted in the revised edition and 
 enlarged in Vale. The interpolation indicates how 
 candidly the author looks back upon himself, since it 
 explains that it was no unprompted generosity that led 
 to his offer to make himself responsible for Marshall. 
 Julien, it seems, urged him to save Marshall from living 
 as a workman, and either make him an allowance or share 
 rooms with him ; a suggestion that rather shocked one 
 who was concerned with his own genius more than with 
 fostering another's. But he yielded, dismissed his valet, 
 and welcomed Marshall. It was unpleasant, he reflects, 
 to have a window opening only to an unclean prospect of 
 roofs, to rise at seven, to work ten hours a day, to forego 
 all pleasures — for the sake of a friend with whom he had 
 entered upon an artistic duel. It was a year of great 
 passion and great despair, defeat falling upon our author 
 by inches, like the pendulum in the pit ; and how could 
 such a mind help suffering, so intensely alive (as he sees 
 it later) to all impulses, so unsupported by any moral 
 conviction.'' His own facility was unequal to his rival's, 
 although in character and feeling his work was more 
 individual and refined ; but Marshall showed himself 
 singularly capable of education, while we have Moore's 
 repeated word for it, and the slow development of his own 
 excellence, that the truer artist was not. 
 
 For nine months the struggle continued — vainly; and 
 the burden of unachieved desire became intolerable. All 
 
42 
 
 that he wanted was art, and art was taken from him. At 
 last, ' I laid down my charcoal and said, I will never draw 
 or paint again. That vow I have kept.' And the rest.'* 
 To the question, What should he do } there was no prompt 
 answer. He strove to read, but it was impossible to sit 
 at home, within earshot of the studio, and all the memories 
 of defeat still ringing. Marshall flaunted success in his 
 face ; his good looks, his talents, his popularity, showing 
 no pity or comprehension. It was not his vanity that 
 distressed Moore, for that is rarely displeasing to him 
 and sometimes is attractive ; it was an insistence and 
 aggressiveness which made the defeated feel only his 
 serviceableness to the other's talent. Ten years hence, 
 whispered the subtle Julien at a feast commemorating 
 Marshall's success, a feast for which Moore himself paid, 
 Lewis will be painting pictures at thirty thousand francs 
 apiece ; but man, adds our author, is such a selfish animal 
 that it began to seem that he would prefer a great failure 
 for Lewis to a great success. Yet if Marshall failed he 
 would never get rid of him; and so he was as unhappy 
 in the Galerie Feydeau as he had been at Oscott College. 
 For relief he sought another circle, and was introduced 
 to John O'Leary and others who interested him on his 
 father's account. But the problem remained, and indeed 
 grew acuter when Lewis broke into that other circle. No 
 longer able to endure the frightful neighbourhood, he 
 told Lewis that he was going to Boulogne, mentioning a 
 Madame Ratazzi with whom he had acted in La Dame 
 aux Camelias. Of his adventures as an actor I know 
 nothing. . . . The story of the rupture is given in Confessions, 
 but the author of Fale, admitting that his own was at once 
 a shameful and a natural act, wonders if he has told 
 sufficiently of his surprise at Marshall's indecency in 
 staying at the appartement when he himself had gone. In 
 fact, his return from Boulogne three months later found 
 the old difficulty as embarrassing as ever, for Marshall 
 
43 
 
 ignored him and refused to leave, playing on his friend's 
 weakness and almost forcing him to plead for forgiveness. 
 
 A new start was needed and the two went to live in 
 the Rue de la Tour des Dames, Marshall to paint and 
 Moore to read and write poetry. Marshall furnished the 
 rooms with the imagination of a high-bought courtesan 
 and a fifth-rate artist, the valuables including incense, a 
 Persian cat, a python and a crush of gardenias. For as 
 yet, it seems, impressionism was an ineffectual influence, 
 and France as vulgar as England ; and Moore had not 
 discovered the satisfaction of the eighteenth century. The 
 commonplace, he says, in speaking of de Musset, is consti- 
 tutionally abhorrent to him ; but clearly it was not always 
 so, and he suffered the perfection of the commonplace 
 — the common itself — to flush his sky. 
 
 But Lewis Ponsonby Marshall seemed to be sinking, 
 and had given up hope of painting anything that would 
 sell, resorting instead to writing ridiculous sonnets. Un- 
 guardedly Moore introduced him to the Nouvelle Ath^nes, 
 and almost died of shame when a foolish question to Degas 
 showed Lewis as guilty of the unpardonable sin — lack of 
 comprehension. It was this and this only, if the memory 
 of the author of Vale may be trusted (and he would 
 prefer an aesthetic reason to any other), that compelled 
 Moore to beg him to go at once. In a few days he went. 
 Months, perhaps years after, he met Marshall at Barbizon, 
 engaged in painting a picture of an old graveyard. 
 Friends gave him kindly or unkindly hints, and nothing 
 remained for I^ewis but to paint the picture. But since 
 a picture exists not in the composition or the drawing but 
 in the touch, it would have remained ' tinny ' had it not 
 been for the advice of that true painter, Stott of Oldham, 
 who showed Lewis how to draw the brush from right to 
 left until the paint began to look less like linoleum ; and 
 Lewis thought he understood. The result was a successful 
 picture which was sold for ten thousand francs. Lewis's 
 
44 
 
 conduct, says his friend, looking back on the success, was 
 not very dignified; he could not restrain himself— the 
 talent of un detraque ; with which remark we may dismiss 
 Lewis Ponsonby Marshall from our tale. Vivid enough 
 are these memories to George Moore, after so many years, 
 and it is characteristic that if he speaks of them now (as, 
 for example, the incident of Stott redeeming the badness 
 of Marshall's technique), it is almost precisely in the same 
 words, without addition or omission, as those used in 
 Confessions or in Vale; so deeply have past things entered 
 into his mind, and so consistent has been his view of 
 them. 
 
 For himself, Moore says, both drama and art were 
 abandoned for poetry. He talked of poems to Lopez, 
 who gave him the innocent advice that he should choose 
 subjects which might astonish the British public by their 
 originality. Hence it was to Lopez that the first copy of 
 Flowers of Passion was presented, and it was with Lopez 
 that he so wonderfully discussed the possibility of an 
 English and a French author collaborating in a play for 
 Henry Irving on the subject of Martin Luther, even 
 deciding that it should be written in a spirit of ardent 
 Protestantism. Alas that nothing of these surprising, 
 delicious discussions has been reported ! 
 
 Proudly does Moore repeat Manet's words, ' There is no 
 Frenchman in England who occupies the position you do 
 in Paris.' A reserved young man would have been back- 
 ward, but Moore was eager, maybe importunate, and he 
 proved irresistible. It was to Lopez, again, that he owed 
 an introduction to Villiers de L'Isle Adam, wild-eyed and 
 dishevelled, with white feminine hand and long-falling 
 hair. His reminiscence plays fondly with the names of 
 artists who flamed in the forehead of his morning sky. 
 Shelley had continued to be his joy, but that joy was 
 swallowed up for a while on reading Mademoiselle de Maupin. 
 
45 
 
 Gautier's exaltation of the body above the soul, the plain 
 scorn of a world of lacerated saints and crucified Redeemer, 
 conquered him. He had always cherished mystery and 
 dreams ; but now so great was the change that the more 
 brutally his old ideal was outraged, the rarer his delight. 
 Never will he read Gautier again, but though he lived a 
 thousand years Gautier's power over his soul would remain 
 unbroken. That Gautier has nevertheless disappeared 
 from the subsequent autobiography of George Moore need 
 not surprise us, nor will it evoke a very profound regret 
 when we read The Brook Keiith. 
 
 After Gautier, Baudelaire. Mad and morbid, is his 
 phrase for the literature created by the enthusiasm of 
 1830. He was never quite subjugated by Baudelaire, and 
 now grudges him the honours of current criticism ; declar- 
 ing, for instance, that famous sonnets show plain faults in 
 every line, even faults of syntax as well as obscurities of 
 meaning, and prepared to prove that every sonnet has 
 such faults. Baudelaire, however, he admits, is saved from 
 neglect by English readers by their common ignorance of 
 the refinements of the French tongue ; and Moore himself 
 escaped that ignorance only at the cost of ten years in 
 France. 
 
 Reading again his earlier and later musings upon French 
 literature, you require but a very faint eflx>rt to remember 
 that Moore's ten years in France were ten years of an 
 immature mind — the mind of twenty to thirty, without 
 traditions or other anchorage, and with ardour alone for 
 guide. He acknowledges the mere instinctiveness of his 
 tastes and his attraction to the sound and appearance of 
 names ; and it is perhaps remarkable how clearly he sees 
 the French writers with his own eyes — Catulle Mend^s, 
 for example, one of the muse's minions ; a perfect realiza- 
 tion of his name, with pale hair, fragile face and depraved 
 idealism. ' His words are caresses, his fervour is delightful, 
 and to hear him is as sweet as drinking a smooth perfumed 
 
46 
 
 yellow wine. All he says is false.' No one's conversation 
 was more fruitful, he admits; but a touch of the later 
 sharpness is added in, 'Every country has its Catulle 
 Mendes. Robert Buchanan is ours, only in the adaptation 
 Scotch gruel has been substituted for perfumed yellow 
 wine.' We need not ask whether Mendes is already so 
 easily forgotten as Robert Buchanan. 
 
 For contrast, Mallarme and Verlaine. Symbolism did 
 not attract him — how should it attract one whose sole art 
 is expressed in clarification and effusion ; one for whom 
 the obscure only is horrible, and the rainy morning light 
 the sweetest in the world? No writer is less capable of 
 mysticism, and fluid as his mind was, it flowed in its own 
 bed and could not be confined to the ambiguous depths 
 and iridescent shallows of the symbolist's world. Proof 
 against Mallarme's influence, he nevertheless admired and 
 has continued to admire the poet, 'one of the saints of 
 literature,' whom to know was an honour and a distinction 
 such as fell upon the Apostles. The dedication of a new 
 edition of Memoirs of My Dead Life to Mr. Edmund Gosse 
 (exquisite the phrase concerning the book that ' so amiably 
 solicits the protection of your name ! ') affords the oppor- 
 tunity of recording a recent visit to the neighbourhood 
 which knew Mallarme, and a testimony to the rare concur- 
 rence of acquaintance and admiration in the mind of our 
 author. To Verlaine the response was more prompt, ample 
 and prophetic, as readers of Impressions and Opinio?is will 
 remember. Verlaine is sharply discriminated as a spiritual 
 perversity — hate as commonplace as love to him, unfaith 
 as vulgar as faith ; yet poetry springing lily-like in white- 
 ness and smell from the obscenity with which his mind 
 was dunged. That is a vivid account of Moore's visit to 
 Verlaine. — The poet had promised a sonnet on Parsifal for 
 publication in a review, and Moore reluctantly accompanied 
 a friend in search of the sonnet and the poet; and an 
 amusing story of the exploration of a dim, eccentric region 
 
47 
 
 of Paris introduces you to a dark corner, a door, and the 
 bald prominent forehead, cavernous eyes and macabre 
 expression of burnt-out lust, which were the outward 
 Verlaine. The head was covered by a filthy nightcap : — 
 
 ' A nightshirt full of the grease of the bed covered 
 his shoulders ; a stained and discoloured pair of trousers 
 were hitched up somehow about his waist. He was 
 drinking wine at sixteen sous the litre. He told us 
 that he had just come out of the hospital : that his 
 leg was better, but it still gave him a great deal of 
 pain. He pointed to it. We looked away. 
 
 ' He said he was writing the sonnet, and promised 
 that we should have it on the morrow. Then, in the 
 grossest language, he told us of the abominations he 
 had included in the sonnet ; and seeing that our visit 
 would prove neither pleasant nor profitable, we took 
 our leave as soon as we could. But I remember one 
 thing that seems characteristic. Speaking of a career 
 for his son, whom he had not seen for twenty years, 
 he said he regretted he had not brought him up as a 
 gargon de cafe, avowing his belief that he could 
 imagine no trade more advantageous than that of a 
 gargon de cafe.' 
 
 Verlaine, he adds, believes, but there is no more than 
 belief, practice is wholly wanting; and he suggests that 
 the poet never quite realizes how he lives or how he 
 writes, for after giving an abominable description of the 
 sonnet he was pondering, he sent the depressed editor a 
 'most divinely beautiful sonnet.' Verlaine and Villon, 
 there is something of kinship between them beyond the 
 crude suggestion of alliteration. The whole man, in 
 Moore's view, is contained in an all-embracing sense of his 
 own unworthiness. ' He spoke of his miserable condition, 
 but without adjective or emphasis — just as the old woman 
 in the ballade might have done ; he deplored the discom- 
 fort that the lack of the very smallest sums of money 
 involved, but without even suggesting that after all it was 
 
48 
 
 a man of genius who suffered.* The picture is supremely 
 sad : he was alive when Moore wrote of him — the prey of 
 strange passions and constant sickness, dragging a pitiful 
 body from hospital to hospital and sheltering among herds 
 of workmen. It is a proof of Moore's sympathy and swift 
 apprehension of a remoter genius than his own, that the 
 tribute from which I have quoted was written when Verlaine 
 was almost unknown ; and our author himself is to be 
 thanked if his tribute is no longer singular. 
 
 Yet another instance of the favourite echo-augury is 
 asserted in Moore's discovery of Zola and naturalism. 
 Hardly able to believe his eyes as they scanned a casual 
 article by Zola, he read that one should write (surely no 
 hard task !) with as little imagination as possible, that plot 
 was illiterate and puerile, and so on; and he rose up a 
 little dizzy, as though he had had a violent knock on the 
 head. For a third time he experienced the pain and joy 
 of sudden light — the 'new art ' called naturalism ; and at 
 once vaguely understood that his Roses of Midnight were 
 dead flowers, sterile eccentricities and what not. The 
 Confessions abounds with the utterance of this mental 
 excitement, and with the difficulties that rained upon the 
 newest disciple when he meditated applying naturalism to 
 poetry. It seemed that time was waiting for the poet who 
 would sing fearlessly of the rude industry of dustmen, and 
 Moore did not foresee that time would quite serenely wait 
 until vers lihre should lyricize the dustman's craft. 
 
 It was, he says, the idea of the new aestheticism that 
 seduced him — the new art corresponding to modern life 
 as ancient art corresponded to ancient life ; for as yet, I 
 surmise, he could not perceive the opportunity of art 
 unentangled by current and local conditions. He could 
 not perceive that what caught him so powerfully was 
 transitory and not permanent, delusive and not solid, a 
 formula and not a native mode. Reading Zola he had 
 
49 
 
 been impressed by a pyramidal size and strength, and a 
 fugal treatment of various scenes ; he did not know then, 
 as he came to know later (how gradually his own books 
 have shown), that it is only the artist that changes, art 
 being eternal. No writer has changed more slowly, or 
 more completely, than George Moore ; no writer has be- 
 come more devotedly an artist ; but he had not yet found 
 what he was, and for a while was subdued by Zola's 
 immense energy and the simplicity of his prescription. 
 Subtilize as he will, the creative mind of an artist craves 
 simplicity, and what is more welcome than a new and 
 energetic formula when the mind is perplexed and wearied 
 with twilight subtleties ? 
 
 Disguised as a Parisian workman, for the occasion was a 
 fancy-dress ball in honour of L' Assommoir, and accompanied 
 by the impressive Manet, he thrust through a Montmartre 
 crowd and found himself speaking to a thickly-built, 
 massive person — Zola himself — who chilled him with a 
 bow and passed on. Not until he sought out naturalism 
 in a temporary fastness did he really talk and listen to 
 Zola, who was not yet the kindly and gracious host, but 
 a bear cursing the universe — no, a Buddha with fat legs 
 lying on a sofa. Buddha, however, finding he had not to 
 entertain a fool, was ready to talk on Protestantism in art 
 to the author of Martin Luther. ' I have made a friend,' 
 repeated Moore again and again as he returned from his 
 first conversation with Buddha ; but the significance of the 
 friendship was exaggerated. Years after, when Confessions 
 of a Young Man was appearing in a magazine and Zola 
 was under a promise to write a preface to a French 
 translation of A Mummer s Wife, Moore called again and 
 found that Zola would not write it. Why? Buddha, 
 resuming whatever humanity he may be supposed to have 
 discarded, pointed to offending passages in ' La Synthese 
 de la Nouvelle Athenes.' For there already Moore had 
 discovered that Zola had no style, but sought immortality 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 in an exact description of a linen-draper's shop ; and I 
 conceive Zola pointing out this enormity of recantation, 
 and others as huge, and disdaining his critic's pleading 
 hands. Vainly, and surely with no excess of dignity, did 
 the younger novelist urge that he was not giving his real 
 opinions — it was a synthesis of others* opinions — can't you 
 see ? Not so, replied the re-humanized Buddha ; you call 
 them Confessions, and when we use that word we mean 
 that at last we are going to tell the truth. Not that he 
 was angered : he merely found it impossible to write the 
 preface. Children will devour their fathers, he added, 
 mantling himself in an unapproachable reserve. 
 
 'There were tears in my eyes,' says our English 
 naturalist, as he recalls Zola's words and the simplicity 
 with which they were uttered ; but the tears were 
 promptly followed with a more familiar sardonic smile, and 
 he goes on to say that at this time Zola was fat, and soon 
 after dieted himself into leanness; that Zola's house 
 revealed a large coarse mind, a coarse net through which 
 living things escape ; that Zola once thought of giving a 
 ball, and so on. And equally characteristic is his return 
 to appreciation as he forgets the external man and con- 
 siders the inward genius, until he cries — a most extra- 
 ordinary imagination I Yet, alas, Zola was not naturally an 
 artist, and the quality of his writing does not seem to con- 
 cern him any more than the quality of the things he buys ; 
 and again, alas, Zola is a striking instance of the insanity ot 
 common sense. All that Moore says of Zola is witness of 
 his own movement ; revelation, recognition, discipleship for 
 the first steps, and again recognition, mocking and neglect 
 for the last. Paris showed him Zola, and the steady, 
 stealthy discarding of Parisian influences showed him Zola 
 anew — a gross imagination, the very enormity of common 
 sense. The illusion was violent, the disillusion complete. 
 
 There is scarcely a word of Zola in Moore's later 
 writings, and equally striking is the silence of our author 
 
51 
 
 upon that other French master whose association with 
 Zola was so honourably public. I refer to Anatole France. 
 Moore's silence might be variously interpreted, but no 
 interpretation is so sure as that the French ironist and the 
 English imaginative artist are diversely endowed and that 
 their superficial likeness — clear enough to one who regards 
 but their humours — is delusive. 1 do not know how 
 fondly Anatole France views the later writings of George 
 Moore, and I can but hope that he does not look upon 
 them with such a mortal indifference as George Moore 
 opposes to the brilliance of his contemporary ; for in his 
 eyes Anatole France is but a small figure. He has praise 
 neither for La Vie LitUraire nor for Monsieur Bergeret. 
 True that the inherent cynicism does not repel him, 
 but neither does the wit charm him. Moore and Anatole 
 France were in Paris together, and met ; but they were 
 young, inconspicuous men, and I suppose previsionary 
 glances prevented both intimacy and enmity. 
 
 A round-shouldered man in a suit of pepper and salt, with 
 small eyes and sharp tongue — Degas — is a figure to be 
 remembered by the side of his friend and rival, Manet, as 
 you see him in Confessions. It was about 1876 that Moore 
 became acquainted with Degas, wondering why he had 
 been called harsh and intractable, an old curmudgeon. 
 It was a mere legend, put protectingly forward by a very 
 courteous and kind man whose sole objection was urged 
 against journalists. Degas held that the artist must live 
 apart, and his private life remain unknown ; and you may 
 judge of the strength of his hold upon our author's 
 admiration when you read of his own breach in the 
 privacy with which Degas surrounded himself. His 
 doctrine was far other than the doctrine of George Moore, 
 who called one morning at his studio, pulled the string at 
 the foot of the stairs and ran up to question the painter 
 about the very book which had so mortally chilled Zola. 
 
52 
 
 Degas was reading the book and was pleased with it — so 
 pleased, that the gratified author began to meditate an 
 article upon his host, saying to himself that Degas' dislike 
 of notoriety was purely imaginary. The article was 
 written — you may read it in hnpressions and Opinions 
 — and attracted attention in France. Hence arose a 
 dilemma ; how could Degas consent to see Moore again, 
 when it had been given out to the world that he would 
 never speak to anyone who related his private life in an 
 article } How could he speak to a friend — a dear friend 
 even — who had flagrantly violated the rule } Degas 
 preferred consistency, until he fell under the power of 
 remembrance and sent word that he would see his old 
 friend when he revisited Paris. But to renew an old 
 friendship would be difficult, and they never met again. 
 A breath of extreme sorrow is heard in the postscript to 
 this story, when you read in a letter from a friend of the 
 painter, ' Degas lives alone and almost blind, seeing 
 nobody, without any kind of occupation,' and picture him 
 hearing of the tardy homage paid to the achievements 
 which his own eyes might never again behold. 
 
 Degas remains in his mind, no more alienated, type (if 
 type he can be called) of the artists to whom George 
 Moore's early devotion was freely given. Among those 
 earlier contemporaries the painters alone remain undis- 
 turbed in eminence, for the writers have become rivals 
 and his emulous ardency has not permitted them to 
 prolong a casual brightness. Manet, Degas, Renoir and 
 Monet — who began, Moore considers, by imitating Manet, 
 while Manet ended by imitating Monet — these endure ; 
 for when our author discarded painting, he found his 
 desires no longer rebuked by their accomplishment. We 
 shall see later on that comparison has been a constant 
 stimulus to his own work, as well as an amusement to his 
 readers ; and it is only in a kindred but remote art that 
 disparagement has not followed quickly on the heels of 
 
h3 
 
 familiarity. This at any rate Paris had achieved for him 
 at the end of his ten-years effort to become a Frenchman. 
 
 But as a writer what did Paris do for him? He had 
 failed to become a painter, and he lost a great deal of the 
 fragmentary knowledge of the English language which he 
 took to France. But he wavers when he asks himself 
 what Paris did for him. At one time he wonders whether 
 Edward Martyn was not right in saying that Moore had 
 lost his soul in Paris and London ; and when he reflects 
 upon that expression of the soul which is called 'style,' or 
 merely ' prose/ he counts himself lucky to have fled from 
 France. Yet he hankered and has always hankered after 
 French, and in his latest meditation upon himself he finds 
 that those ten years were not wasted ; Nature drove him 
 forth from England, for in her strange wisdom she 
 lamented the deeply-rutted road into which English 
 fiction had fallen, and raised up a new Parsifal. To 
 redeem mankind from too great admiration of certain 
 writers — you are to presume contemporary English 
 novelists — she sought out one who had resisted school 
 education, one who had been a perplexity to his father 
 and indulged himself in the pleasures of opera bouffe until 
 he was twenty-one, and sent him to Paris to forget English, 
 and at the same time fail to become a French writer. A 
 virgin mind, he notes, in this half-dazzled, swift, reverting 
 glance. Shall we not echo his added tribute, that Nature's 
 foresight and versatility are indeed remarkable ? She put 
 pebbles into his mouth, and they dropped out but slowly, 
 one by one, with each of his laborious efl^orts to write 
 English. We shall see them fall, we shall note the 
 gradual clearing, the articulation becoming less laboured ; 
 modulations will be distinguished, civilities and humours 
 will be heard, and when the last stone — a round French 
 stone — has been ejected, we shall hear a voice speaking 
 with unaccustomed ease and a fluency which is sometimes 
 
54 
 
 near to monotony, yet never wanting the variableness of 
 the seasons of the year. 
 
 He wavers, I said, when he asks what Paris did for him, 
 at one time murmuring, 'So much,' and at another, 
 ' Perhaps so little !' Even in 1921, in the prelude to the 
 new edition of Memoirs of My Dead Life, he has asserted, 
 * So much ! ' yet in the same year, answering the question. 
 How much ? he murmurs, ' I don't know ; perhaps, as 
 you say, the writer was in me all the time and Paris may 
 not have helped me much, even though you may be wrong 
 in thinking it hindered me. Who can say ? * — And when 
 he is pressed with. After all, doesn't a writer, like any 
 other human being, simply become more and more in- 
 tensely himself? And isn't his exercise partly a stripping 
 of the foolish accretions of his youth, and sloughing 
 numberless skins until his native brightness appears, his 
 Paris being but a thicker and tougher skin than all the 
 rest .'' — when he is pressed thus his eyes sink musingly 
 back into his head and he answers, * Perhaps — who 
 knows ? ' and fails to remark, what I have only just 
 remembered, that in the preface to The Coming of Gahrielle 
 he himself has significantly pointed out the truth that we 
 grow into ourselves, if we grow at all. 
 
 It would be ill-manners to make George Moore a mere 
 warning to other writers, yet the significance of his mental 
 subjection to the French is not limited to himself. One 
 whose chief interest has for many years been animated by 
 English verse may be pardoned for thinking that a sub- 
 ordination to foreign influence is an evil thing to befall an 
 English writer. Imaginative literature is a fleet sailing 
 its eternal course over the seas of the world, and if the 
 newest commander of the frailest barque puts in at an 
 alien port and lingers on until hulk and shrouds alike are 
 decayed, he will find it a huge discouraging task to put to 
 sea again. Moore seems to have thought he could become 
 French merely by living ten years in France ; but kindly 
 
55 
 
 as his glance was, he perceived at last that he was not 
 French and had but made his task as an English writer 
 stiff with every possible difficulty. That certain English 
 writers have been touched to fine issues by the study of 
 another than their native language, proves nothing for the 
 argument so far as our author is concerned ; for he is 
 an experimental writer, and how can you write from ex- 
 perience except in that language which is the chief gift 
 of experience and of the deeper, unconscious experience 
 called tradition ? Ten years in France are not wasted if 
 they yield an acquaintance with many and a familiarity 
 with a few of the leaders of the impressionists, and at 
 least — or at most — they may suffice to make an agreeably 
 versatile writer upon English art; but in that other 
 practice, the practice of prose, ten alien years may con- 
 ceivably work an effect only less ignoble in prose than in 
 verse. Denaturalization is an end beyond the reach of 
 any truly imaginative writer, and usually beyond his aim 
 also ; and the attempt is deplorable as well as vain, for the 
 deflection of young vigours during a whole decade in a 
 man's life — ^and in art how brief the longest life ! — is a 
 weakness which cannot pass unobserved, and which will 
 persist long after the surrender has been annulled. I 
 need not labour the argument, for has not Moore bewailed 
 that surrender with eloquent and exact admissions ? But 
 even Moore himself has not apprehended all the con- 
 sequences, and has often been complacent enough in his 
 review of the past. 
 
 Yet a reservation must be made, for to generalize on 
 such personal matters is neither interesting nor useful. 
 The influence of France upon the creative mind may have 
 been deadly enough in Moore's case, but upon the critical 
 mind the same morbid influence cannot be asserted. 
 Definitions of ' creative ' and ' criticism ' need not seduce 
 our attention just now, for refinements of distinction are 
 wasted where the facts are generous in their witness. As 
 
56 
 
 a creative writer George Moore had much to unlearn, 
 much to forget when he left France for England, and even 
 his excellences are marred by foreign airs and patches ; 
 his clearest impressions being delayed until slow time and 
 wandering change had released and renewed him. But as 
 a critical writer it seems that in the years first following 
 his return to England he owed much to France. It was 
 his luck, as we have remarked, to be associated in varying 
 degrees with many painters whose work has already 
 become part of the nineteenth century's bequest to the 
 twentieth. Of one of them, whose painting has the 
 quality which George Moore's purest art itself manifests, 
 I mean Corot, he speaks too little, but still with the 
 admiration of an unavowed disciple. He approaches what 
 he calls the mystery of Corot when he suggests that Corot's 
 art has nothing in common with impressionist art; for 
 although Corot aimed at rendering his impression of a 
 subject, his method of rendering it was contrary to the 
 method of Monet and his school, Monet never having 
 known how to organize and control his values. Usually, 
 however, Moore's criticism is most acute when he has 
 something to tell you of the painter himself or when he is 
 challenging current tastes. He can strike sparks from 
 the solid rocks of popular stupidity, as he sees it in the 
 Royal Academy, but he contributes little to the foundation 
 of principles which might purge the Royal Academy of 
 stupidity in the future. 
 
 More frequently does he speak of Manet, Degas and the 
 rest, and always with the admiration of a declared disciple. 
 They could not teach him their art, but he could learn to 
 look with their eyes and to weigh with their measure. 
 Had he lived in the great period of English water-colour, 
 his instinct would have led him into contact with English 
 painters, and he would have shown the same discriminating 
 zeal in proclaiming their virtues as he has shown in 
 asserting the virtues of the impressionists ; it being plain 
 
57 
 
 enough that George Moore in his earlier writings is not an 
 original critic but a very perfect and subtle echo. In 
 those essays (as indeed in all his later work) he betrays no 
 hint of speculation in his mind ; his criticism is based 
 not upon principles of aesthetics, but upon remembered 
 sensations and personal influences. You will not look to 
 Modern Painting or Impressions and Opinions for theories ot 
 criticism or theories of creation ; and even now, although 
 Croce may sweep all England with his new flame, Moore is 
 shy of abstractions and remains unlit and unwarmed by 
 any aesthetic speculation. Ivy-like he clings round his 
 subject, his leaves gleaming brightly and precisely against 
 the hard rind of created beauty and revealed truth ; 
 detached he falls. There is an exquisite responsiveness in 
 his essays on art ; the more closely he follows the intention 
 of the subject the more happily you listen ; and he is able 
 to illustrate and support his opinions by a reminiscent 
 familiarity which leads you to forget to ask for something 
 fresh and independent in view. Thus in writing of Degas 
 he says that Degas, with marvellous perception, follows 
 every curve and characteristic irregularity, writing the 
 very soul of his model upon the canvas ; but you hardly 
 stay to remark the vagueness of such phrasing because it 
 is followed with : — 
 
 ' He will paint portraits only of those whom he 
 knows intimately, for it is part of his method only 
 to paint his sitter in that environment which is 
 habitual to her or him. With stagey curtains, balus- 
 trades, and conventional poses, he will have nothing 
 to do. He will watch the sitter until he learns all 
 her or his tricks of expression and movement, and 
 then will reproduce all of them, and with such exacti- 
 tude and sympathetic insight that the very inner 
 life of the man is laid bare. . . . And that Degas may 
 render more fervidly all the characteristics that race, 
 heredity, and mode of life have endowed his sitter 
 with, he makes numerous drawings and paints from 
 
58 
 
 them ; but he never paints direct from life. And as 
 he sought new subject-matter, he sought for new 
 means by which he might reproduce his subject in 
 an original and novel manner. At one time he 
 renounced oil-painting entirely, and would only work 
 in pastel or distemper. Then, again, it was water- 
 colour painting, and sometimes in the same picture 
 he would abandon one medium for another. There 
 are examples extant of pictures begun in water-colour, 
 continued in gouache, and afterwards completed in 
 oils ; and if the picture be examined carefully, it will 
 be found that the finishing hand has been given with 
 pen and ink. Degas has worked upon his lithographs, 
 introducing a number of new figures into the picture 
 by means of pastel. He has done beautiful sculpture, 
 but, not content with taking a ballet-girl for subject, 
 has declined to model the skirt, and had one made by 
 the nearest milliner.' 
 
 The lengthy citation may be paralleled by many others 
 upon other painters. It is not an illegitimate method, it 
 is a method that may teach much, but it is scarcely a 
 critical method. Rather is it an instance of Moore's 
 failure in detachment as a critic, and since painting is not 
 his own art, his criticism is useful not for understanding, 
 but for accepting a picture. The method would possess an 
 equal validity if applied to the praise of bad pictures, and 
 in fact when Moore writes of bad pictures he scarcely 
 shows you why they are bad, but simply how he hates 
 them. He does not rationalize his dislike, and is yet 
 farther from giving you the means of rationalizing your 
 own. To few men is it permitted to announce principles 
 of criticism, though many men evince an excellent, intuitive 
 judgment ; but criticism is something beyond the avowal 
 of intuitive likings and revulsions. Moore's conception of 
 pictures, attractive and stimulating as you find it, is one 
 to which the conscious mind has brought much less than 
 the unconscious ; while the great critic is he in whom 
 
59 
 
 emotional is fused with intellectual apprehension. But 
 the great critic is rare, and is seldom developed in the 
 creative writer. 
 
 Nevertheless, I do not urge that George Moore's 
 criticism is parasitic. The mendicant critic resorts to 
 easy paraphrase, and with the facility of a fool will tell 
 you what a picture is about — a trick perfectly legitimate 
 in respect of inferior art, in which subject can be regarded 
 aj)art from treatment, but sterile and impertinent in respect 
 of original art. Moore has never yielded himself to such 
 a folly. Instead of sinking to the description of a picture, 
 he tells you of its effect upon him — a story of far more 
 interest — or merely the effect of the painter's personality 
 in sharp contact with his own. It is this, indeed, that 
 lends half the interest that you find in his essay on 
 Whistler. You will not fail to remember his personal 
 dislike of Whistler on first seeing him, nor question 
 whether that primary dislike was ever overcome. There 
 is, for instance, a subtle disparagement in the phrase. 
 Nature has dowered Whistler with only genius ; if there 
 is, also, a clumsiness which must have amused that acute 
 stylist to tears. Whistler, Moore says, lacked physical 
 power, but a painter needs the nerves of a bull ; and then, 
 oddly and innocently enough, he urges that if Whistler 
 had been six inches taller, and ' his bulk proportionately 
 increased ' — I hope that the author of such a phrase will 
 never chance on it now — his art would have been 
 different. Innocent and odd are such sentences, but as 
 you read on you find that they are introduced merely to 
 give a living hue to Moore's dislike and a physical origin 
 to the hysteria, febrility, anaemia and weakness which the 
 critic affects to find in Whistler's work. Tributes to 
 certain of the Nocturnes do not lessen the offence of a 
 critical attitude which hazards such a twilight practice : 
 and Moore even applies this practice to the details of 
 painting, saying. Look at that ear ! in proof that the 
 
60 
 
 painter's nerves had given way once or twice. Unfortunate 
 is it that these petulances of criticism should persist in 
 the reader's mind even when the author proceeds to 
 unrestrained praise. 
 
 It is pleasanter to observe that this critical mode does 
 not touch Moore's affection for the French artists, to 
 whom his submissiveness was almost as complete as 
 prompt ; though with these also the interest of what he 
 says is mainly personal and reminiscent. . . . ' That 
 marvellous hand, those thick fingers holding the brush so 
 firmly, so heavily : he did with it what he liked, and my 
 palette was the same to him as his own ; ' — it is of Manet 
 that he speaks. ' A wise and appreciative Jew, looking 
 like Abraham, with white beard and bald head, always 
 following in another's footsteps, a will-o'-the-wisp ot 
 painting ; ' — it is of Pisarro that he speaks. And ot 
 Cezanne — ' I do not remember ever to have seen Cez- 
 anne at the Nouvelle Athenes ; he was too rough, too 
 savage a creature, who used to be met on the outskirts of 
 Paris wandering about the hill-sides in jack-boots. As no 
 one took the least interest in his pictures he left them in 
 the fields ; when his pictures began to be asked for, his 
 son and daughter used to inquire them out in the cottages, 
 and keep watch in the hedges and collect the sketches he 
 had left behind.' . . . Anarchical work was Cezanne's, but 
 there is life in his pictures. 
 
 Moore is as French in what he says of pictures in Vale 
 as in his writings of twenty years earlier. He assimilated 
 the best that was around him, surrendering himself so 
 easily that the worst had no chance. Thus his Frenchifi- 
 cation was a positive gain when he approached English art, 
 and if an English painter may have ignored or contemned 
 his criticism, that criticism was too intelligent, too clear 
 a mirror, to fail in affecting those who buy pictures. 
 Happily it is not an unavoidable part of my task to trace 
 the influence of Moore's writing upon current standards of 
 
61 
 
 art and criticism ; I need only remind the reader that our 
 author claims an honourable position, for instance, as an 
 apostle of Verlaine, and that his unfaltering assertion 
 thirty years ago of the excellence of certain French artists 
 has been confirmed by the recognition of a discriminating 
 public in England. Not without reason he plumes himself 
 now on reflecting that those who took his early advice and 
 bought impressionist pictures have made money out of 
 them ; and if this book were written for dealers it might 
 be amusing to pursue the subject. 
 
 The volume in which the story of his Parisian years is 
 told was not written until some time after his return to 
 England. He has twice annotated the book since then, 
 once in 1904 and once in 1916, without attempting the 
 impossible softening of crudities, without, in fact, trying 
 to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. He does not 
 despise it, and indeed regards it as a sort of genesis, 
 containing the seed of everything he has written. He is 
 gratified when he looks back and finds that his tastes in the 
 early eighties are his tastes in 1916 — an unusual admission 
 and an unusual source of pride. The interest of the book 
 is not the interest of literature, but for our present purpose 
 it has a value almost beyond that of any other of George 
 Moore's writings. 
 
CHAPTER 111 
 
 NATURALIST OR REAUST 
 
In truth good Authours deject me too-too much, 
 and quaile my courage. I willingly imitate that 
 Painter who, having bungler-like drawn and fondly 
 represented some Cockes, forbad his boies to suffer 
 any live Cocke to come into his shop. And to give 
 my selfe some luster or grace have rather neede 
 of some of Antinonydes the Musicians invention ; 
 who, when he was to play any musick, gave order 
 that before or after him, some other bad musicians 
 should cloy and surfet his auditory, — Montaigne. 
 
HE had gone to Paris about the end of 1872^ and left it 
 ten years later. ' As was characteristic of me, I broke 
 with Paris suddenly, without warning anyone. I knew in 
 my heart of hearts that T should never return, but no word 
 was spoken, and I continued a pleasant delusion with 
 myself ; I told my concierge that I would return in a month, 
 and I left all to be sold, brutally sold by auction. . . . 
 Not even to Marshall did I confide my foreboding that 
 Paris would pass out of my life, that it would henceforth 
 be with me a beautiful memory, but never more a practical 
 delight.* Yes, it is characteristic, and characteristic too 
 that his return from France should be made to appear — 
 for his readers — not only sudden but unaccountable. How 
 completely narrowed his personal horizon had become, 
 may be guessed from the fact that not only his first resting- 
 place, but his centre of interest after leaving France was 
 London. His father had travelled, swept off his feet, in 
 his son's story, by a great passion ; strange lands too had 
 called him, but George Moore did not hear the voices which 
 called his father forth. Neither the strong passion nor 
 the beckoning of strange lands touched him when he left 
 France ; his preoccupation was already sedentary, and 
 camels and ships and peasants' huts and snowy heights 
 remained beyond his care. Whether a certain poverty of 
 interest does not result from narrowness of contact, and 
 whether indeed an urban life is a wise choice for a sensitive 
 artist, are questions which it is a little ungraceful to ask 
 and unnecessary to answer ; and yet the infinite, rosy-hued 
 cloud of might-have-been holds certain hints of other 
 developments of the powers that were hidden in George 
 Moore when he stepped into the inobsequious Strand, 
 dressed in exuberant necktie, tiny hat, large trousers and 
 V 65 
 
66 
 
 a beard. A like extravagance of garb is admitted in 
 Pamell and His Island, where he describes his own appari- 
 tion in the person of another suddenly breaking in upon 
 the familiar house, with long hair, Capoul-like beard, 
 Parisian clothes — un etre de feerie. . . . And not less an 
 alien in mind than in dress, his first business was, he 
 recollects, with an agent who explained that Moore owed 
 him a few thousand pounds; that being the first and 
 perhaps most violent impact of external upon mental 
 things. You are, in fact, to understand that it was this 
 business that called him from France, since the Moore 
 Hall estate, under the influence of Parnell and the boycott, 
 was producing debts and not revenue, and even the modest 
 remittances upon which his Paris life depended were to be 
 discontinued. But this of itself meant but a brief inter- 
 ruption ; a few days might have seen him back in Paris ; 
 yet he stayed, obedient to some gesture, voice or air 
 sweeping the barrenness of his heart. He knew that it 
 was determined for him that he should stay, just as it was 
 determined later that he should go to Ireland and then 
 again leave it. . . . The difficulty of money could be put 
 by, but how evade the difficulty of a reinstated intelligence 
 at odds with its home? Every outward aspect was new 
 and strange, every face now Brobdingnagian and now 
 Lilliputian, but all alike foreign. Preoccupied as he was 
 with this separation, he was yet able to conclude em- 
 phatically that the difference between English and French 
 is found in the men, not in the women. Englishwomen 
 and Frenchwomen being psychologically very similar. 
 But the opposition between the men of the two nations 
 seemed temperamental and absolute. Generalizations of 
 this easy kind are not, however, common in our author. . . . 
 Picture him debouching from Morley's Hotel, meditating 
 upon the departure of his agent and then, wherever he 
 turns and whomsoever he accosts, dismayed by a ridiculous 
 awkwardness of speech ; an intensely French-looking 
 
67 
 
 Irishman, anxious to become English and an English writer, 
 yet no longer at home in his native language nor secure in 
 his foreign tongue. Gulliver's isolation was never com- 
 pleter. Moore had heard of writing and speaking two 
 languages equally well, but he found it impossible; so 
 impossible, that had he stayed but two years longer in 
 France he would never have been able to identify his 
 thoughts with the English language. He is able to 
 determine, with melancholy exactitude, that the real 
 damage was done during his last two years in France, 
 when he had begun to write verse and occasional articles ; 
 and it was with surprise that he found himself thinking 
 more easily and swiftly in French than in English. He 
 could write French verse, in the strict form of sonnet or 
 ballade, but for all his ease he knew it was harder to 
 write prose than verse, whether in French or English. 
 And even when he was once more in England, and could 
 write ' acceptable ' English verse, the ordinary newspaper 
 prose was beyond his reach. Verses quoted in Confessions 
 of a Young Man are meant to show the kind of poem 
 admired in France when it was written in French and 
 translated into English ; for surely that, and not the 
 reverse, must have been the process. 
 
 ' We are alone ! Listen, a little while. 
 And hear the reason why your weary smile 
 And lute-toned speaking are so very sweet. 
 And how my love for you is more complete 
 Than any love of any lover. They 
 Have only been attracted by the gray 
 Delicious softness of your eyes, your slim 
 And delicate form, or some such other whim. 
 The simple pretexts of all lovers : — I 
 For other reason.' 
 
 It is, he cries : — 
 
 ' Happiness to know that you are far 
 From any base desires as that fair star 
 
68 
 
 Set in the evening magnitude of heaven. 
 Death takes but little^ yea, your death has given 
 Me that deep peace, and that secure possession 
 Which man may never find in earthly passion/ 
 
 Pictorial verse, truly, verse of the studio, verse queerly 
 sentimental, verse to which you listen with a sense of the 
 intellectual abasement and depravity that follow the hear- 
 ing of an English drawing-room song. Flowers of Passion, 
 published in 1878, and Pagan Poem*, published three years 
 later, comprise nearly all his verse, and neither volume has 
 a present value except in the eyes of men who collect 
 scarce books and grow rich by selling them again. 
 Swinburne speaks in the Ode to a Dead Body : — 
 
 ' Is it a garden of eternal sleep 
 
 Where dreams laugh not or weep ? 
 A place of quiet below the tides of life 
 Afar from toil or strife ? * 
 
 and the most innocent Swinburne in the ' audacious ' 
 Moore who wrote : — 
 
 * Poor breasts ! whose nipples sins alone have fed. . . . 
 Poor lily hands steeped in the mire of shame.' 
 
 Sins, strange sins and fuliginous remorse form the subject 
 of these poems, which are immature even for the im- 
 maturest writer ; and it is wonderful that he should have 
 been so well pleased with the Baudelaire-Swinburne of 
 the earlier book as to reprint some of its contents in 
 Pagan Poems. The book was denounced by Edmund 
 Yates (who appears to have usurped some authority in 
 his own day) under the heading of 'A Bestial Bard,' a 
 folly by no means discouraging to the young poet. It 
 is a dreadful thought that George Moore might have 
 persisted in his devotion to verse, and indeed have 
 become a prominent member of the Fleshly School of 
 Poetry ; for the flesh has the whole field in these small 
 
69 
 
 volumes, and despair only saved the author from becoming 
 a prolific bad poet. How strong and how obscure was the 
 vital instinct for prose may be judged from the curious 
 fact that the verse which he discarded after 1881 was, 
 qiia verse, so much better than the prose, qua prose, 
 which he hugged to his bosom and pored upon by day 
 and by night, with the fidelity of a dog and the assurance 
 of a swallow. . . . Time passes quickly with young writers, 
 and three years before thirty may witness greater changes 
 than ten after thirty ; but in 1881 Moore stood, as regards 
 poetry and its spell, very much where I find him forty 
 years later, for it was not poetry but prose that he was 
 born to write ; and hard though he has found it to write 
 simple prose, infinitely hard to write his later and better 
 prose, it was lucky that he did not increase his difficulties 
 by confusing them with the no less tyrannous and subtle 
 difficulties of verse. An acute critical demon saved him 
 from pursuing English poetry, and he is aware of that 
 mercy, for he still sees that he cannot express himself 
 in verse as he can in prose. He remains interested in 
 English poetry, scarcely less than in French, yet I wonder 
 in which his appreciation is more limited. Certainly in 
 English poetry his idols are few, and they are what they 
 have always been — Shelley and Swinburne. His loyalty 
 to these first loves may appear remarkable if you forget 
 that it results from the almost childlike simplicity of 
 affection which is a part of his many-stranded character. 
 It endures even while he admits to himself that he will 
 never be a poet, as he once whispered that he would 
 never be a painter. He may still write French verse, 
 but he will no longer pipe for English ears that have 
 listened to Meredith, Hardy and Doughty; and if I 
 surmise that, with the eternal exception of Shelley, he 
 most admires the verse that has the best qualities of 
 French form, rather than the ampler harmonies and 
 varieties of our English muse, he will scarcely dissemble 
 
70 
 
 his agreement. Ten years in Paris, those early im- 
 pressionable years, determined not only his judgment 
 of pictures but his affection for poetry also ; it is only 
 in prose that he has travelled. 
 
 Before he was thirty, then, he had realized quite 
 suddenly that minor poetry would not be an occupation 
 for a lifetime, and so precisely is this discovery remem- 
 bered that he can even localize it, the very place at the 
 corner of Wellington Street in the Strand ; — indeed, as 
 Meredith says, a fitting spot to dig love's grave. Painting 
 and poetry had failed him, and the heavenly vision still 
 beckoning, prose only remained ; and you may read in 
 Confessions of a Young Man how bitter was the pursuit — 
 nay, you may read it in book after book, now admiring 
 the courage and now marvelling at the failure. 
 
 What he has said there is but what he has said in many 
 other places and on a dozen other occasions. He recalls, 
 for instance, with a quite dispassionate humour, Wilde's 
 remark that Moore had to write for seven years before he 
 knew there was such a thing as grammar, shouting out 
 then his amazing discovery ; and then he had to write 
 another seven years before he found that a paragraph was 
 architectural, and again could not conceal his astonish- 
 ment. And he wonders even yet why learning has always 
 been so hard for him, and can only sigh amusedly as he 
 adds that he could always learn what he wanted to learn, 
 without precisely showing what that was. Wilde was 
 right, he agrees : ' I did not know — I simply did not know 
 how to write, and even now, after more than forty years' 
 diligence, I've almost as much trouble with grammar as 
 with spelling ; it's incredible, the trouble I have to take, 
 in order to produce even the passable sentences which 
 other men write unthinkingly. And the strange thing 
 was, I had given up painting because I couldn't express 
 myself in paint, and poetry because I couldn't express 
 
71 
 
 myself in verse, although in painting and in versing I 
 could do passably enough. My drawing was not common 
 like Marshall's, and I could do tolerably well if the model 
 happened upon an attitude which I could use. And my 
 verse was — what you see (for my pictures, you can't and 
 will never see them) ; at least correct, rather sensitive if 
 not very impulsive ; and I gave that up too for the same 
 reason. But if you ask why, when I found 1 couldn't 
 express myself in prose, I didn't give prose up as well, 
 there's but one answer. . . . What is it ? — Well, it was 
 the stoi-y that held me in thrall, the story that was and is 
 my Belle Dame Sans Merci. I've always been able to 
 conceive, to invent a story, and though I couldn't write, 
 I found that I could learn because I wanted to learn. 
 Words I have always, and in abundance, and an ear for 
 rhythm ; my enduring foe is composition.' 
 
 His drawing, in fact, was ' common ' in prose. I do not 
 know of a finer example of the industrious apprentice than 
 George Moore offers to the faint yet pursuing writer ; nor 
 a more candid admission of literary impotence than he 
 makes in speaking of his early work. The prose of A 
 Mummers Wife, for instance, is bad, and he quite meekly 
 acknowledges it : — ' The book isn't written at all ; you 
 can't call a collection of sentences, or half-sentences, 
 prose, any more than you can call the inhabitants of a 
 hospital an effective regiment. The halt, the maimed, 
 and the blind do not make prose, even if now and again 
 a phrase stands upright, or a sentence moves of its own 
 power, or a whole paragraph luckily disguises the general 
 tendency to locomotor ataxia. Esther Waters wasn't my 
 first novel, but if you have any doubt of the truth of 
 what I am saying, you need but compare the opening 
 chapter in the original edition with the same chai)ter in 
 the revised edition. It isn't prejudice, or perverted 
 modesty ; I know when the writing is passable, and 
 that is why (answering a question) the passage you 
 
72 
 
 quote concerning the flood of gold, the dear gold, rolling 
 into the little town, was untouched in the revision. But 
 that's an exception. Sometimes I stumbled upon a felicity, 
 but most often stumbled a thousand miles from it.* 
 
 It is tempting but inopportune to ask by what miracle 
 of patience the prose thus laboriously learned has come to 
 wear so perfectly the appearance of nativeness ; yet I must 
 interpolate the remark that, wanting that miraculous 
 patience, the pen still stumbles and the drawing is still 
 common. Thus a letter in which he sought to answer 
 certain criticisms in a weekly journal on The Brook 
 Kerithy a long and acute letter, contains evidence enough 
 that the closeness of the argument and the brevity of 
 time have prevented the author's attending to his p's 
 and q's. A mere ' would ' for ' should * is venial, but 
 the absence of all characteristic qualities is a graver 
 matter, and serves to illustrate Moore's admission that 
 only by a persistent wooing is the sullen irresponsiveness 
 of prose overcome. True the grosser flaws are missing, 
 but forty years have passed and even the wilful mind 
 slowly acquires the habits of that in which it works ; 
 yet none the less haste is still the enemy of that leisured 
 lightness, that supple willow-like waving of images, which 
 in the later books persuades you into thinking how easy it 
 must be to write well, since the writing is so unstrained in 
 its natural delight. 
 
 Let us not, however, anticipate that perfection. The 
 business of a writer being to write, and the absence of 
 that primary power rendering worthless a thousand 
 secondary powers, it is proper to note more exactly 
 George Moore's early qualifications, if that term be not 
 too misleading ; and let us take the novel already referred 
 to, A Mummer s Wife, by no means the least excellent of 
 the earlier novels. Now if words be more than names of 
 things and acts, a single sentence will be sufficient to show 
 how poorly words are used in the decent, hardworking 
 
73 
 
 prose of A Mummer^s Wife. True that the defect can be 
 assigned, if you will, to a sedulous naturalism, to a desire 
 to be literal and, in common phrase, let the facts speak 
 for themselves; but at the present moment I am con- 
 cerned to note the quality rather than excuse it. 
 
 Let me choose, therefore, a passage in which the author 
 may, if he wish, find a temptation to avoid this solid 
 literality, a passage of that reminiscent kind which has 
 become Moore's lucky medium : — 
 
 'Montgomery was as light to Kate, and soon he 
 became almost as necessary to her spiritual happiness 
 as her lover was to her material. He was so kind, 
 so gentle, and he allowed her to talk to him as much 
 as she liked of Dick. Indeed he seemed quite as 
 much interested in the subject as she was. It was 
 always Dick, Dick, Dick. He told her anecdotes 
 concerning him — how he had acted certain parts; 
 how he had stage-managed certain pieces ; of supper- 
 parties ; of adventures they had been engaged in. 
 These stories amused Kate, although the odour of 
 woman in which they were bathed, as in an atmo- 
 sphere, annoyed and troubled her. As if to repay him 
 for his kindness, she, in her turn, became confidential, 
 and one day she told him the story of her life.' 
 
 In Modem Painting he has been troubled to define his 
 use of the term ' values,' insisting upon the meaning of 
 proportion and relation in the use of light and colour, a 
 note of music, a colour in painting, acquiring beauty 
 according to its association; hence the necessity of the 
 musician or the painter knowing intimately what it is that 
 secures contrast and similitude. The recital may seem 
 primitive, but it indicates the fault of this prose The 
 phrases contribute no more than their lowest meaning, 
 for they are but a series of phrases, lacking co-ordination 
 and luminousness, giving nothing and owing nothing to 
 one another. 'Beginning at the beginning, she gave 
 
74 
 
 rapidly an account of her childhood, accentuating the 
 religious and severe manner in which she had been 
 brought up, until the time when she and her mother 
 made the acquaintance of the Edes.' Formal speech 
 could not be colder, grammatical clauses might never 
 spare less of light and warmth and movement, in a 
 passage in which a young woman, thrilled with love, is 
 recalling the most intimate of her early memories. 
 Strange that the meticulous revision of the story in 1918 
 should have found the sentence passable : nothing could 
 be less associative, nothing less imaginative. From the 
 same page you may pick the same insentient phrases — 
 affinities of sentiment, sweetest currents of emotion, 
 moments of divine abandonment, inexpressibly dear, 
 delightful sensations of enthusiasm. . . . This is not prose, 
 it is not speech, it is not even reporting — it is merely 
 print. The writing of Thomas Hardy, especially in the 
 earlier novels, is at times conspicuously awkward (' What 
 can be more pudding ? ' cries our sardonic author), 
 betraying an imperfect mastery of speech ; but even in 
 the earlier novels, as so frequently in the later, there are 
 pages of felicity and beauty. But with Moore the case is 
 altered ; seldom does he write awkwardly, and yet infeli- 
 citousness is constant in the earlier novels ; partly, I 
 think, because the literal ity at which he aims is in itself 
 a harsh and delusive quality, and partly because, as yet, 
 he cannot help himself whatever his aim. The details 
 do not ' compose ' anything at all, and while superfluous 
 detail is usually avoided, significant detail is likewise 
 wanting. And when, in the last chapter of A Mummer s 
 Wife, the narrative cries for something to mollify the 
 crudeness of the pain, you meet with sentences which 
 merely vex and exasperate : — 
 
 ' It was like a costume ball, where chastity grinned 
 from behind a mask that vice was looking for, while 
 vice hid his nakedness in some of the robes that 
 
75 
 
 chastity had let fall. Thus up and down, like dice 
 thrown by demon players, were rattled the two lives, 
 the double life that this weak woman had so 
 miserably lived through.* 
 
 Disharmony is doing its worst. — Later on I shall have to 
 speak of the same disharmony in the characterization of 
 the concluding chapters of the book, but at this point I 
 am concerned merely to observe the maladroit intrusion of 
 the wrong note into the writing itself, and its dissipation 
 of the proper and sombre horror which it is intended to 
 deepen. 
 
 In A Mummef-'s Wife the difficulties of grammar, of 
 which our author so frankly confesses himself a victim, 
 have been overcome or disguised, and the writing is no 
 worse, perhaps, than that of a dozen novelists whom we 
 read for the frivolous story's sake ; but what is surprising 
 is that the author of such frigid and inexpressive prose 
 should ever have discovered, even slowly, in later books 
 the ' control of his values,* and not only avoided infelicities, 
 but achieved a mastery which in its kind is unique. Prose 
 being an art, it would be an unamusing paradox to say 
 that Moore's case suggests that a bad writer may become 
 a good writer merely by taking pains, but the present case 
 proves nothing but the difficulty of art. Infinite pains 
 would not have given us the style of The Brook Kerith if 
 he had not been a born writer, though born to an inheri- 
 tance, or an office, which for years he could not realize ; 
 and the fact that a candid reader will deny the faintest 
 signs of the later writing in any of the earlier books must 
 remain what it is — a singular, inexplicable truth. Theory 
 misled him, and the influence of alien models ; he knew 
 too much of French and too little of English writers ; and 
 for years he was struggling, first against his native powers 
 and tendencies, and then again to recover them. It was 
 only by struggling that the writer in him was saved, but 
 the writer was in him all the time — an emaciated, 
 
76 
 
 impoverished spirit, kept faintly alive, full of hesitations 
 and misgivings, but slowly gathering strength from the 
 simple failure of the alien to extinguish the native. 
 
 To the writing of prose which was even less articulate 
 than that of A Mummer s Wife, Moore's earliest years in 
 London were devoted. Necessity dictated journalism and 
 ragged rooms in a Strand lodging-house, of which, as of 
 his fellow-lodgers and 'the awful servant, Emma,' his 
 memory is vivid enough. That note of unsympathetic 
 externalism, which can be fairly challenged in other books, 
 begins to appear in his story of Emma ; for he was curious 
 to ask her all sorts of cruel questions, in order to plumb 
 her depth of animalism. Sometimes his questions were 
 too cruel, striking through what he terms the thick hide 
 into the human, and Emma would wince ; but his intelli- 
 gence saw her as very nearly an animal — one of the facts 
 of civilization. Perhaps there is nothing in all his wanton- 
 ness of speech, in another kind, more distressing and 
 deplorable than this, but it is half pardonable — like those 
 other offences — because it is only half truthful ; later 
 passages showing that he was kinder than he chose to 
 appear, and that what he perversely dissembled was not 
 an inhuman indifference, but a human warmth. Few 
 characters, indeed, present a less obscure enigma than the 
 character of George Moore ; his secrets are usually open 
 secrets, and he most artfully disorders those qualities 
 which it is most impossible to mistake. 
 
 Living on two pounds a week in a Strand lodging-house, 
 with an unsuccessful actress for neighbour and poor Emma 
 for specimen, our naturalist and realist began journalism, 
 seeking to express ideas that were like unripe apples. 
 He did more — he read his contemporaries as he reads 
 them no longer, and for our amusement and astonishment 
 he has left the most unreserved record of his opinions. 
 Henry James in those days had not written The Wings of 
 
77 
 
 the Dove, The Golden Bowl, The Two Magics, or the dozen of 
 short stories which have delighted our intelligence in the 
 last twenty-five years ; but he had written The Portrait of a 
 Lady, and it is in speaking of this that Moore murmurs — 
 ' Empty and endless sentimentalities/ He tells in Avofvals 
 how he discussed this novel with James, and how an 
 expression of envy passed over his friend's vast face when 
 he described the subject of A Modem Lover. I imagine 
 it was not with envy that Henry James read it. . . . Moore 
 read also Mr. Hardy and Blackmore and is able to speak 
 of them in one breath — of the former, indeed, with a 
 disdain which in 1888 was merely ludicrous, and which 
 in 1922 is something worse. I am reminded that in 
 writing of the revelation which Marius the Epicureaji 
 brought to him, he talks of a sweet depravity of ear, 
 meaning, I suppose. Pater's ear ; but surely the phrase 
 describes his own in 1888. It is not, however, my present 
 purpose to discuss George Moore as a critic, but to note 
 the thoughts that eddied in his mind when he started to 
 write himself, and to point out the beginnings of that 
 absolute unreserve of judgment which has always been 
 characteristic of his attitude. Let me but add, that when 
 the preface to a new edition (1904) of Confessions of 
 a Young Man was written, our author — earless and un- 
 abashed as Defoe — found but one thing to withdraw, a 
 reference to George Eliot, whom he had over-praised — 
 singular excess ! Constant reviser as he is, ruthless with 
 himself and as ruthless with others, he found nothing else 
 to revise in this early deluding book. 
 
 It was because of such opinions as these, as well as 
 because his English was as yet rotten with French idiom, 
 that literary criticism was soon closed to him, at any rate 
 as far as leading journals were concerned ; but still he 
 wrote and translated play and opera and short story. 
 Some of the short stories were printed, and so it was that 
 our author sank into the literary world or half- world of 
 
78 
 
 London. He could not learn to see life paragraphically, 
 yet the book in which his adventures are dustily shown 
 for perusal suggests that no other view of life was possible 
 for him. But he longed for fame and notoriety, and 
 again and again avows his shamelessness and his pride in 
 it, bringing for proof the duel which he tried to force 
 upon a ^beautiful young lord.'. . . Let the phrase pass, 
 and that still more egregious phrase — ' he is now, if he 
 will allow me to say so, a friend.' It was for this duel 
 that his old friend, Marshall, rehabilitated by success, was 
 called from Paris to London ; for our author had grasped 
 the advantage at once — a duel with a lord and all the 
 Conservative press on the lord's side and all the Liberal 
 press on the author's. Need it be said that the duel did 
 not take place ? Letters passed, and George Moore 
 returned to his ragged rooms in the Strand, to resume the 
 writing of his first novel with a far more genuine passion 
 than he could apply to anything else in the world. 
 
 Almost as ludicrous is that other episode related by 
 Whistler's biographers. Moore, we are told, had intro- 
 duced Sir William Eden to Whistler in 1894, and a 
 portrait of Lady Eden was the result. A dispute followed 
 concerning the price to be paid, and legal proceedings 
 were begun. The decision of the case, which was tried 
 in France, was adverse to the painter, and a sharp con- 
 troversy between Whistler and Moore led to Whistler, 
 who was then in France, challenging Moore and sending 
 to England as his seconds M. Octave Mirabeau and 
 another. For all his slighting and foolish criticism of 
 Whistler, I do not imagine that Moore wanted to murder 
 him, or that Whistler was anxious to rob the future of 
 a book which might surely rejoice his own delicate 
 perceptions — The Lake. Happy it was, then, that the 
 affair ended with the seconds. 
 
 An amazing young man, he calls the subject of 
 Confessions, looking back over sixteen years. Audacious 
 
79 
 
 Moore, was Walter Pater's term, which is recalled with 
 pride and fondness ; but it is scarcely the term we should 
 employ now, although we should agree with ^ the author 
 of the most beautiful of all prose books,' Imaginary 
 Portraits, that Audacious Moore was losing by his cynical 
 and therefore exclusive way of looking at the world. It 
 is only too true. The young man was losing heavily and 
 all but irretrievably, and if I have touched too often upon 
 the book in which the young man first attempted 
 literature, it is by no means because I share Pater's 
 assurance of its literary faculty, but because the book 
 frankly and eagerly proclaims the personality of its author 
 in the sharpest pangs of birth. The writing of Confessions 
 occupied the summer of 1887, the wonderful Jubilee 
 summer, spent at Southwick, upon which Moore looks 
 back so often and so fondly. His visit had been intended 
 to last but two or three days, and really lasted two or 
 three years ; and in a lodging overlooking the village 
 green, in the most English of English counties, in that 
 year of the expiring sputter of English parochialism, that 
 year in which the spirit we now so perversely detest or 
 despise looked for a while eternal, George Moore toiled 
 at his exotic chapters. Pity that we cannot feel any more 
 cordiality for them than for that Victorianism which he 
 and we equally abhor! His exoticism has been dis- 
 carded, for thirty years is a long span in an artist's life ; 
 and far more beautiful — and as clearly in the English 
 tradition as the green and the downs — are the few pages 
 of Ave describing his Southwick life, than any part of the 
 earlier Confessions. 
 
 Enough has been said of the qualities of Moore's early 
 prose to permit me now to look at the novels under other 
 aspects. I do not propose to follow our author faithfully 
 through time to eternity, and in turning to his first novel, 
 A Modem Lover, written in such a smoky atmosphere as 
 
80 
 
 we have briefly whifFed, the excuse is^ of course, that after 
 years of neglect it was re-written and issued in 1917 
 under a new title — Lewis Seymour and Some Women — with 
 a preface betraying an author's unhappy fondness for his 
 first-born. A Modem Lover , he says, was the work of a 
 young man who in a moment of inspiration hit upon an 
 excellent anecdote and, being without skill, devised an 
 uncouth text out of memories of Balzac, Zola and Gon- 
 court ; yet it was such a true and beautiful anecdote that 
 it carried a badly written book into his collected works. 
 The anecdote is simple enough — three women work for a 
 young artist's welfare ; the first is a work-girl, the second 
 a rich woman, and the third ^ a lady of high degree ' ; and 
 the first alone retains all her faith, the second loses part 
 of it and the third loses all. Let us freely admit the 
 truth of the anecdote, in order that we may consider the 
 more carefully its beauty. But its beauty can only consist 
 in its treatment, a dogma which needs no buttress, yet 
 which so much of Moore's work nevertheless supports ; 
 its beauty is an effect, an impression which may be 
 communicated and noted. The effect will probably be 
 found in the characters, as much as in the incident, and a 
 review of A Modem Lover reminds me that only one of 
 the chief characters has attractiveness, Lucy Bentham ; 
 she alone contributes to an impression of beauty, or at 
 least to a pathetic aspect which may serve in the absence 
 of beauty ; and if, as Moore has said, the first business of 
 a writer is to find a human instinct, it is found in this 
 happy-unhappy woman. Lucy Bentham is a figure cast 
 in the old mould, the maternal mistress, and the pathos of 
 her situation is clear enough ; and as clear is the pathos 
 of that minor person in the story, Gwennie Lloyd, the 
 first of the women who suffered so that Lewis Seymour 
 might succeed. But the anecdote is without the light 
 and shadow of beauty ; what dominates it is not the 
 sacrifice of the three women, but the vulgar egoism of 
 
81 
 
 their idol. They gave what they could, only to be 
 displaced in giving ; and the worthlessness of the idol is 
 but a cynical commentary upon that giving. Moral the 
 book assuredly is, and I am not sure that its too insistent 
 morality does not support the cynicism in expelling 
 beauty. ... It is, let me repeat, a first novel, and need 
 not be judged severely : it need hardly be judged at 
 all, but for Moore's tenderness in re-writing it and 
 re-presenting the 'truth and beauty' of the anecdote. 
 
 Is it unpleasant to dwell upon what one deplores ? 
 Criticism flourishes quite happily as an art of complaint, 
 and there are good reasons why a hundred things may be 
 shown in blame, for one that may be hinted in praise of a 
 subject. I cannot find the single point for praise in 
 Lewis Seymour and Some Women, except the ease of style 
 which has grown, as we have seen, almost natural, and 
 which has in this book become a little lax ; but there is 
 an enormous complaint to be uttered. To put it briefly, 
 the anecdote has been deliberately and grossly sensualized, 
 and the further degradation of Lewis Seymour, with the 
 degradation of his women, makes beauty more impossible 
 than mere cynicism might. 'These words made it plain 
 to Lewis that if he could persuade Lucy to condone his 
 conduct and forget it, he would one day be admitted to 
 her bedroom.' That sentence is a summary of the book. 
 Reiterated lecheries, is Rabelais' term for the subject ; a 
 joyous composition, surely ! is Moore's phrase for the book 
 in which he employs it. ... I think it is the sole 
 instance of his ruining a poor book by revision or re- 
 writing; and he has ruined it because the revision was 
 conceived in a perverse mood — was it merely for the sake 
 of shocking his amanuensis? — while bathing and medi- 
 tating upon the imperfection of his first novel. The 
 reader too might crave for a bath when he had finished it. 
 
 I remember that there was lately in London a respect- 
 able brick building occupied by an honest tradesman 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 One day it was seized upon by a contractor^ who cut away 
 the front, demolished the decent brick, thrust in steel 
 joists beneath the unwalled floors, and then built up — on 
 four columns of Portland stone — a new stucco front with 
 an elaborate cornice, above which the old roof still rose 
 steep. The stucco was finished to look like stone, but the 
 stone refused to look like stucco, and the building remains 
 now a sad and haunting image of uncostly sham. 
 
 He went back to Moore Hall to write the novel which 
 helped him to realize his own powers, using for it many 
 experiences acquired in London. In London he had 
 undertaken an English libretto for Les Cloches de Cojyie- 
 ville, for which the original of poor Dick Lennox had 
 given him £30 ; and in London the Gaiety bar (in which 
 he so innocently hoped to find another Nouvelle Athenes) 
 yielded both directly and indirectly much of the matter 
 for A Mummer s Wife. How much more serious a book 
 that is than its unfortunate predecessor needs no telling 
 now, and what has been said of the writing of it must not 
 blind us to the excellence of one of the best of all English 
 novels written to a formula. I have said that the prose- 
 writer innate in George Moore was slow in assuming the 
 freedom of nature, and it is equally true that the story- 
 teller also was far from rejoicing in that freedom when 
 A Mummer s Wife was conceived. Formulae were to be shed 
 and forgotten before his true work could be attempted, 
 but A Mummer s Wife represents the transient and brilliant 
 triumph of a formula ; and perhaps that triumph was 
 necessary in order that our author's final manner might 
 wear the aspect of reaction and another triumph. Within 
 the limits of meticulous recording and careful analysis, 
 of the kind to which Government blue-books have inured 
 us, the novel is an almost unique success ; and almost 
 unique, again, among its author's works is the invocation 
 of moral horror to whet the sense of tragedy. It is the 
 
83 
 
 most exactingly moral of all George Moore's writings, 
 but the particular moral is implicit and not expressed, 
 and, as I have just said, is subordinated to the tragic 
 purpose. The point is clearly seen in a single glance 
 at a single character, Dick Lennox. Kate's moral weak- 
 ness, her swelling and ebbing wantonness, is heightened 
 by being shown against the quite unmoral and unreflecting 
 good-nature of the fat mummer. Wanting the power to 
 hold Dick for ever, Kate sinks below the capacity of her 
 nature ; but Dick, grosser and more buoyant, floats easily 
 upon the waters that have gone over her head. Tested 
 by the standards of morality, he is a thought lower than 
 Kate, but in his mere grossness he is more human, being 
 as incapable of her best as of her worst. Good-nature as 
 a practical basis for human relations, good-nature just 
 conscious of itself and of the lack of all else — is this that 
 Dick reveals ; revealing also at the same time how far this 
 serviceable quality will carry a man whose moral being has 
 never known pure light. There is nothing else to be 
 learned by a repeated reading of A Mummer s Wife, and if 
 it be thought that the gain of knowing that is little, then 
 I have failed in putting the case for its author. The 
 inconstancy of the human factor in different people — to 
 assume the style of the book — and the stability of animal 
 vigour when a finer activity has died, it is these simple, 
 forgotten truths that the novel clearly illustrates. To 
 see it as a sermon against drink or against unfaithfulness 
 in husbands is, I suppose, possible but far from profitable ; 
 yet books are sometimes considered on their lowest terms, 
 and it is stimulating to think of George Moore preaching 
 on either subject. 
 
 But all that has been said does not denude, nor is it 
 meant to denude, the tragedy of its proper horror. Object 
 as you will to the farcical impossibility of Mrs. Forest, 
 who makes love to Dick while his wife is dying of drink — 
 and even yet poor Dick, sunken to that lady's property. 
 
84 
 
 does not lose his hold upon our good -nature, for his own 
 is so unfeigned — object as you must, the tragedy of Kate 
 is still true, a genuine offering to the tragic Muse. Few 
 English novels prolong more surely than A Mummers 
 Wife that undertone of human and moral at war which is 
 heard, for example, in Tolstoi, in whom it is, indeed, 
 never quite faint and at length rises into a storm of 
 intolerable discord. The Moore that wrote this book 
 has disappeared, intelligence or something less easily 
 definable has preyed upon him, and now he is as careful 
 to avoid the direct moral impression as then he was 
 careless to deny it. Was it the method that helped him 
 more than he knew, or was it the theme that possessed 
 him, and dictated all but the words — pity the words were 
 left to the author's industry ! — and gave him a touch of 
 insight beyond what was common to his years ? I cannot 
 say, but I know that the Moore that wrote this book has 
 disappeared and another Moore has been busy over his 
 remains, telling us things maybe that we cannot think 
 for ourselves, and * telling ' all with a new ease of per- 
 suasive force. The face changes — a line, a quality, a 
 simplicity perhaps, has gone ; another line, another look, 
 another quality has come, perhaps a better quality. But 
 the quality of common tragedy has gone; the face has 
 changed. 
 
 An interesting point is recorded in the 1918 (revised) 
 edition of this novel, which was dedicated to Robert Ross. 
 Ross, it seems, thought no other book of Moore's so likely 
 to live as A Mummer s Wife, saying that although Esther 
 Waters speaks out of a deeper appreciation of life, in 
 A Mummer s Wife there is a youthful imagination and 
 exuberance. The tribute sets Moore wondering — * If I 
 had lived here before, Jupiter knows what 1 should have 
 written, but it would not have been Esther Waters ; more 
 likely a book like A Mummer s Wife — a band of jugglers 
 and acrobats travelling from town to town.' An antique 
 
85 
 
 story rises up in his mind, a recollection of one of his lost 
 works or an instantaneous reading of Apuleius into A 
 Mummer s Wife — which? But he dwells no longer upon 
 the sombre morality of the primary conception. 
 
 The face has changed, I said ; but it did not change 
 suddenly. Change is seldom sudden, however violent 
 or unforeseen its manifestation. Moore was a young man 
 when he wrote this novel of one of the Five Towns — it is 
 seductive to think of Mr. Arnold Bennett poring over it in 
 his first youth, and murmuring, Hanley, Hanley, why not } 
 — and only two years older when he followed it with a 
 book so differently schemed and placed as A Drama in 
 Muslin ; and it is not until you look broadly at his whole 
 work as a novelist that you recognize how earnestly he has 
 sought the greatest extension of his powers. . . . Moral ! 
 The moral of George Moore's whole attitude to his calling 
 is overwhelming, the moral of priest-like devotion to the 
 creating of a sphere in which his characters, the most 
 commonplace in the world, may live and move and have 
 their being. His later graces — and graces truly is the 
 term — may disguise this devotion, but a moment of reflec- 
 tion shows it as enduring. Even in the beginning it was 
 a conscious aim, for what I have termed the sphere of 
 each book — Hanley, a theatrical touring company in one, 
 Dublin Castle in another — was a sphere visible to his eye 
 when he wrote, and visible still when he looks back and 
 records that the author of A Drama in Muslin seems to 
 have meditated a sort of small comedie humaine, a medita- 
 tion that proved fruitless and is not now regretted. It 
 was, he thinks, life and not simply its envelope that 
 interested him in planning the two books ; he sought 
 Alice Barton's heart as eagerly as Kate Ede's ; and 
 plunging a little deeper, he sees that far less accomplished 
 author, somewhat surprisingly, as a soul-searcher with a 
 headlong, uncertain style, and beneath the style a real 
 
86 
 
 interest in religious questions, and a hatred, as lively as 
 Ibsen's, of the conventions that drive women into the 
 marriage market. 
 
 Ibsen was much more conspicuous a theme for discussion 
 in 1886 than he is to-day, and perhaps we hardly appreci- 
 ate the significance of Moore's comparison of A Drama in 
 Muslin with A Doll's House. He points out that the 
 subject of the two books is the same, and thinks it a 
 feather in his cap that a young man of thirty should have 
 chosen it instinctively, reminding himself and us very 
 plainly that not until he had written half his story did he 
 hear the first translation of A Doll's House. Equally 
 emphatic is his statement that his own art, however 
 callow, was at least objective, while Ibsen had renounced 
 all objectivity ; but he confesses that he could not under- 
 stand A Doll's House, being too much absorbed in his 
 own work, and in observing and remembering life, to be 
 interested in moral ideas. The story is the thing, as 
 we must constantly remind ourselves, without, however, 
 restricting too narrowly the possibilities of the story. 
 He had chosen to write of a ^puritan,' but not of a 
 sexless puritan; and his story of Alice Barton frankly 
 yields him the same kind of pleasure as a good drawing. 
 
 And having said so much of the author of A Drama in 
 Muslin, the young man of thirty or so with lank yellow hair 
 (often standing on end), sloping shoulders, female hands, 
 and an engaging vivacity of mind (for so the mirrors of 
 Dublin Castle yield him up to the mature writer of 1915), 
 he cannot but regret a little that young man's failure to 
 make a comedie humaine out of the later history of Alice 
 Barton and Violet Sculley; and he broods upon Violet's 
 future until a vague shaggy shape emerges and a typically 
 Moorish situation is breathed fantastically upon the air. 
 Polyandry has settled down with Christianity, and the 
 practice of acquiring a mere share in a woman's life, rather 
 than insisting on the whole of it, has taken firm root in our 
 
87 
 
 civilization ; hence, with this notion firmly rooted in his 
 own head at any rate, he is able to dream of the poly- 
 androus Marchioness of Kilcarney, and picture husband 
 and lover discoursing with perfect amity and aesthetic 
 justice upon Violet's perfections. ... A very ingenious 
 story, he cries, urging against it, however, the grave 
 improbability that three people ever lived contempor- 
 aneously who were wise enough to prefer, and prefer so 
 consistently, happiness to convention. 
 
 I think this speculation worth pondering, for it marks 
 so plainly one of the differences between George Moore 
 in 1886 and George Moore in 1915. The former, we will 
 agree, would have written such a sequel as is suggested 
 with a fumbling hand, or would have shunned the subject 
 altogether ; the simple reason being that the subject, as 
 the later writer contemplates it, is not an imaginative one, 
 and is not imaginatively conceived, but is rather one for 
 such a sardonic intellectual exercise as his own phrase 
 suggests when he speaks of preferring happiness to con- 
 vention. I cannot regret, then, that when A Drama in 
 MilsUji came to be revised and even its title reduced to 
 Muslin, our author did not pursue his characters with a 
 theory, but was content with a touch here, a pruning 
 there, and that general stealthy amendment which gives 
 to his first books something of the beauty of the 
 later. 
 
 Considering, however, the 1886 volume as it stands, and 
 especially as a step in the development of an artist, A 
 Drama in Muslin has a very definite value. Its position 
 between A Mummer s Wife on the one hand, and Spring Days 
 and Confessions of a Young Man on the other, is witness to 
 the zeal with which Moore tested his powers, and the bold 
 deliberateness with which he pursued his aim of becoming 
 an English novelist of the better sort. When he sat 
 writing it in the Shelburne Hotel, Dublin, looked out on 
 St. Stephen's Green, and dressed his reflection in the 
 
88 
 
 mirrors of Dublin Castle^ I doubt whether he regarded it as 
 the exposition of the personal conscience stirring against 
 the communal (another of his comments upon Alice 
 Barton's story), and I am sure it would have lost much of 
 its excellence if he had. No, it was his intense curiosity, 
 his thirst for a story growing as he passed and repassed 
 the mirrors, that taught him the spell whereby Alice 
 Barton and her mother and Lord Dungory and Violet and 
 Kilcarney were called to the surface again, and held there 
 in almost unwavering distinctness until their eager artist 
 had finished with them. If now he is tempted to rationalize 
 his imaginative glimpses, it is because he is older, and 
 prone to look with a very imperfect sympathy upon a 
 work which was schemed in a mood so different from the 
 mood of the retrospective critic. It is remarkable that 
 he should be so willing now to spoil the impression of an 
 imaginative story with a thesis, and so ill-content to let 
 the story preach whatever moral it will ; for this is the 
 self-consciousness not of the artist, but of the theorist with 
 a notion which needs must lessen the proper influence of 
 the novel as a piece ot life. 
 
 But in 1886 the social theorist lay almost silent, and the 
 life that swirled and broke around the Shelburne was his 
 engrossing concern ; and in particular Alice Barton and 
 Violet and May and Olive, puppets of the social drama 
 and living persons of Moore's book, scarcely secondary 
 being Mrs. Barton and her attendants. Occasionally the 
 artist sleeps and the theorist wakes, and acute extraneous 
 pages are pressed violently into the narrative ; an intrusion 
 so simple and crude that it belongs to satire of a primitive 
 kind, resulting from an artist's irritability rather than 
 from the impatience of a sociologist. The author has 
 become expansive, spending his strength vainly upon a 
 voluptuous description of a Viceregal drawing-room, as 
 though he would fain be Balzacian by mere excess ; but 
 the simplicity of his story is never lost, and it ends as 
 
89 
 
 quietly and primly as it begins. Less significant as a 
 novel than A Mummer s Wife, its place in the Moore canon 
 is secure, for it shows him for the first and almost the last 
 time as the author of the domestic novel which so many 
 hands have attempted, and which is usually as tedious as 
 The Newcomes and as unlovely as that other masterpiece 
 of the commonplace. Vanity Fair. Its title to a place in 
 the canon is confirmed by the revised version, in which 
 the proof of the value of pure literary instinct at work upon 
 something substantial but faulty may readily be found. In 
 1886 George Moore could not refrain from a sharp piece 
 of satirical realism in describing 'the moral ideas of 
 Dublin in 1882.' — A land of echoes and shadows, he 
 exclaims ; the young and the old, running hither and 
 thither, curse the Pope for not helping them in their 
 affliction. The pages are not to be found in the 1915 
 version. In 1886, Cecilia, the unhappy celibate, assails 
 Alice Barton with morbid lauds and laments concerning 
 mystical religion, the depravity of the human heart 
 and the nature of Jesus, which it was undesirable or 
 unnecessary to repeat in 1915, and which in the earlier 
 version are followed by physiological speculations no more 
 necessary thirty years later. On the other hand, his 
 immature reflections upon man's modern attitude towards 
 women are reprinted by the older novelist ; but there is a 
 significant change in a concluding scene — I refer to that 
 in which Alice Barton and her husband, touched to tears 
 by the aspect of an eviction, restore the ragged outcasts 
 by paying the due rent; but in 1915 Alice's mind has 
 grown subtle — ' she wished her departure to be associated 
 with an act of kindness,' which is, she fears, another form 
 of selfishness ; and her husband, consoling her for not 
 being able to pay the rent, adds, ' Nothing lasts in 
 Ireland but the priests. And now let us forget Ireland, as 
 many have done before us.' It is not simply Alice's mind 
 that is subtilized, the author's too has changed ; and 
 
90 
 
 there has come into it a hatred of the picturesque attitude 
 which it needed small prescience to forecast as a piece of 
 his natural development. 
 
 Controversy has played a far from insignificant part in 
 the life of George Moore, and the publication of A Modern 
 Lover gave him an admirable opening for his pugnacity. 
 The beginnings of the campaign are recorded in Literature 
 at Nurse J or Circulating Morals, a pamphlet issued in 1885, 
 in which he asserts rather than explains the position of 
 the artist. A Modern Lover had met, he says, with the 
 approval of the entire press (pray reflect before you 
 ejaculate ; it was published in 1883), but Mudie's declined 
 to circulate it, alleging that two ladies had written dis- 
 approvingly. Moore was irritated into deciding (against 
 the entreaty of Mr. Mudie) to publish his next book at a 
 humble six shillings ; and no one will be surprised that A 
 Mummer s Wife should have been yet more warmly and 
 assuredly more wisely welcomed. But again the libraries 
 objected, and Moore's pamphlet cites at length the harm- 
 less passage which gained the book's refusal as an immoral 
 publication. Readers who possess the first edition of A 
 Mummer s Wife may judge for themselves whether this 
 most sombre of conventional sermons might have a 
 seductive effect upon pliable spirits ; the pages denounced 
 being those in which Kate Ede is sent down to open the 
 door to her lodger and is kissed by him. The charge was 
 so foolish that it hardly deserved a pamphlet, but the 
 injustice was rank and the possible injury serious. Moore's 
 answer was characteristic and amusing. He took three 
 novels which had not been refused by the libraries, 
 summarized their plots, and quoted a questionable scene 
 from each, crying, ' Look on this picture, and on this ! ' The 
 method is elementary but effective, although the unhappy 
 novels chosen for this essay in comparative damnation 
 were unworthily obscure — Nadine, by Mrs. Campbell Praed, 
 
91 
 
 Foxglove Manor J by Robert Buchanan, and A Romance of the 
 Nineteenth Century, by Mr. W. H. Mallock. 
 
 Much more stimulating, however, is our novelist's 
 announcement of his personal attitude, expressed with a 
 touch of juvenile petulance which we can very well under- 
 stand. ' To speak candidly, I hate you ; and I love and 
 am proud of my hate of you. It is the best thing about 
 me. I hate you because you dare question the sacred 
 right of the artist to obey the impulses of his tempera- 
 ment . . . because you feel not the spirit of scientific 
 inquiry that is bearing our age along.' It was to Mr. 
 Mudie that this outburst was addressed, and if Mr. Mudie 
 rubbed his eyes and asked whether A Modem Lover and A 
 Mummer s Wife exemplify or promote the spirit of scientific 
 inquiry, the question and its answer went unrecorded. 
 Little enough has the later George Moore to do with 
 scientific inquiry, and it is strange that the earlier writer 
 should not have been content to rest his case solely upon 
 the ample rights of the imaginative artist. In another 
 passage he is still a little ambiguous and ill-content to 
 stand upon that sole unanswerable contention : — ' I would 
 not have it supposed that I am of opinion that literature 
 can be glorified in the temple of Venus. . . . The middle 
 course is to write as grown-up men and women of life's 
 passions and duties.' The middle course — yes, but it is 
 too exact a definition of the naturalistic novel to please the 
 novel reader in 1922; yet might not 1922 welcome a 
 naturalistic novel even, to cleanse the foul bosom of much 
 perilous stuff .^ 
 
 Literature at Nurse is merely the earliest of those 
 challenges to the stupid which George Moore has always 
 rejoiced in uttering. Whatever dignity he presents to our 
 view — and it is almost solely the dignity of an artist's 
 achievement — he has never cared to assume that of suffer- 
 ing fools gladly ; perhaps because it is an attitude which 
 the fool himself can so easily feign. 
 
It is tempting to regard all the earlier novels as a 
 preparation for Esther Waters, but that is a fallacy which I 
 refuse to share. True that Moore's growing experience 
 did not yield its full value until Esther Waters was written, 
 but ^ Mummer s Wife and A Drama in Muslin stand quite 
 easily by themselves, and I am not sure that Spring Days 
 also is not an independent witness of our author's zealous 
 invention. It is as clearly an experiment as any of the 
 early novels, and indeed in that circumstance consists 
 most of the attraction which it exerts ; an attraction less 
 than profound, yet not too vague to be noted. The 
 preface to the original edition reminds the reader that a 
 companion book to A Drama in Muslin had been promised, 
 a book dealing with young men and blotting out young 
 women, or rather using young women merely for a 
 decorative background. That book was to be called Don 
 Juan, and Spring Days is the prelude to it and all that we 
 have of Moore's Don Juan. 'Oi this idea of man, so 
 complete and so full of subtle psychological interest, the 
 dramatist, the librettist, and the poet have given us only 
 a pretty boy with whom numerous women fall in love ' — 
 a Lewis Seymour, in fact. Shall we regret that Moore 
 changed his mind } His strength is not in his ' Idea * 
 but in his story, as we are so constantly remembering ; 
 his first essay in the incarnation of the idea of Don 
 Juan was — what we have seen ; and this prelude to the 
 unattempted second essay does not tease us with any 
 sweet dream-apples of delight. 
 
 Spring Days is born of that prolonged visit to Sussex of 
 which Moore has spoken in Hail and Farewell ; it is cast 
 in the midst of the same scenery as you glance at in 
 Esther Waters. But Spring Days is far too arid a book 
 to give the reader any pleasant prospect of the downs ; it 
 is filled with an unkind, shadowless light and the harsh 
 voices of sex-conscious girls. If Moore had felt constrained 
 to display middle-class vulgarity and futility in a single 
 
93 
 
 complete reflection, so that vulgarity and futility might 
 behold the reflection and perish, some such novel with a 
 purpose might have resulted ; but I cannot attribute that 
 passion to him, and must concede that he makes this experi- 
 ment because he was amused at the setting. It was 
 originally published in the year of Confessions of a Young 
 Man, and in the preface to the new edition the author 
 records how he was induced to republish it after twenty- 
 five years of oblivion. Certain friends had liked it, and on 
 re-reading the forgotten pages he found a zest which 
 helped to explain the tenacity with which the book had 
 clung to existence. 
 
 Arid, I have called it, but something more should 
 have been said. It is a book of confused purposes and 
 impressions, and only one clear impression survives the 
 confusion — an impression of twilight vanity. A doleful 
 comedy, you may say, as you hurry to the last page with 
 a sigh, finding whatever is sad a little ridiculous, and 
 whatever is constant pathetic. Simplicity and tenderness 
 unite in a single page or so which I must quote for its 
 immense relief of the harshness of the whole, remarking 
 also that it unstops a minor music not heard hitherto 
 under the restless fingering of our artist : — 
 
 ' 1 knew my passion was hopeless, but I couldn't 
 resist it. Had I known her I might have won her, 
 but there were no means ; I never saw her but once 
 off* the stage, and that was but a moment. I often 
 sent her presents, sometimes jewellery, sometimes 
 fans or flowers, anything and everything I thought 
 she would like. I sent her a beautiful locket ; I paid 
 fifty pounds for it. 
 
 Did she accept your presents ? 
 
 I sent them anonymously. 
 
 Why did not you try to make her acquaintance ? 
 
 I knew nobody in the theatrical world. I was not 
 good at making acquaintances. You might have done 
 it. I am a timid man. 
 
94 
 
 Did you make no attempt? You might have 
 written. 
 
 At last I did write. 
 
 What did you write ? 
 
 I tried to tell her the exact truth. I told her that 
 I had refrained from writing to her for three years. 
 That I quite understood the folly and presumption 
 of the effort ; but I felt now, as drowning men that 
 clutch at straws^ that I must make my condition 
 known to her. I told her I loved her truly and 
 honourably, that my position and fortune would 
 have entitled me to aspire to her hand if fate had 
 been kind enough to allow me to know her. It was 
 a difficult letter to write.' 
 
 When Spring Days was re-issued the sufficiency of this 
 recital was admitted by the author, who left it untouched, 
 but the succeeding paragraphs of the original edition were 
 wisely changed. The earlier novelist had indulged in one 
 of those undramatic asides of which Thackeray had given 
 him innumerable and worthless examples ; an aside 
 ending: 'And then those letters — the one saving sign 
 of soul in the man — that they should have perished, when 
 the thousands of vain expenses and sterile records of 
 ineffectual calculations stood bound and numbered in so 
 many volumes.' It is omitted by the mature writer. 
 Generally the novel has been only slightly revised, but a 
 comparison of the fourteenth chapter in the two editions 
 emphasizes for the millionth time the necessity of taking 
 pains. Moore has never been a careless writer, but if you 
 assume that he did his best with a poor subject in 1888 — 
 a subject yielding savour of poisonous brass and metal 
 sick — you may reckon the leap of his ability when you 
 turn to the revisions. True enough, as he says, there's 
 no more moral in Spring Days than in Daphnis and Ckloe, 
 but that is a negative virtue. Most of the characters jerk 
 and drop in a vacuum, and are seen in such a distinct, cold 
 light that their motions seem unimpulsive and without 
 
95 
 
 significance; Willy alone is saved by his fidelity and 
 failure, and remains to justify the title Spring Days if you 
 remember that in spring an east wind will blow and shrivel 
 many a flowering branch. It was an experiment, and the 
 aridity so sedulously achieved was not to be repeated. 
 Skill was gained, and Esther Waters was to show more 
 clearly the advantage of subordinating parts to a whole ; 
 yet Spring Days is more than a mere precursor, if less to 
 us than it seemed to its author on re-reading. 
 
 The preferences of authors are usually engaging enough 
 when contrasted with one's own, and I confess that I 
 cannot follow the fancies of George Moore's mind when 
 he speaks of discarding Vain Fortune, or relegating it to 
 his dusty apocrypha, while nevertheless retaining a favour 
 for Celibates. The bibliography of our author is itself 
 significant of the mental processes, and in particular the 
 jealousy with which he regards his work; Vain Fortune, 
 for example, having been twice revised by this victim of 
 the disease of re-writing. In 1895 he did not disdain it, 
 and regarded it as being far from his worst novel, but in 
 1921 he has rather inexplicably frowned upon it. Most 
 properly might the revised text have been included in 
 Celibates when that collection of stories was published 
 in 1895. 
 
 It is a mere episode in treatment, a short story in 
 essence, and, like Spring Days, communicates an impression 
 of futility; enriching that impression, however, with a 
 sense of tragedy far graver than any earlier book save 
 A Mummer s Wife unfolds. A reminder of another novel, 
 A Drama iti Muslin, is conveyed by the imaginative 
 apprehension of a young girl's mind, in its isolation and 
 mania ; and it is a reminder the more welcome inasmuch 
 as it thrusts the commonness of Lewis Seymour and Evelyn 
 Innes yet farther into the dark of the mind. It is difficult 
 to imagine a purely pathological study being executed 
 
96 
 
 with more tenderness than is used in the study of Emily 
 Watson ; and it is no less difficult to believe that Evelyn 
 Innes and Emily Watson, or Lady Helen Granderville 
 and Emily Watson, are the work of the same hand. 
 Emily is the natural foil to the celibates of the book so 
 entitled; she told her love, jealousy was cruel as the 
 grave, and her story yields a glimpse into the deeps of 
 our poor human nature over which custom and shame 
 have drawn a flimsy shroud. Well might a suspicious 
 reader gasp in anticipation of offence in such a situation, 
 and there are many novelists who would not disappoint the 
 sorest anticipation ; but the restraint of Fain Fortune is 
 the restraint of an artist who cares more for his art — that 
 is, for his story — than for the pleasure of shocking. It is 
 a restraint which I am bound in candour to emphasize, for 
 the lapses from it in other books are yet to be deplored. 
 
 I said it might have found a place in Celibates, mean- 
 ing that it is the exact counterpart of stories in that 
 volume ; for it has this in common with them — that it is 
 written in illustration of a theme, or selected as a type 
 in the true spirit of a new comedie humaine. There is no 
 reason why a good novel should not be written in this 
 way, but it is not a way which is littered with success. 
 Tess of the D'Urbervilles presents a pure woman, but if 
 you admire the book more than George Moore does, it is 
 not because it faithfully presents a pure woman, but because 
 it presents Tess ; the novel, in fact, gaining nothing from 
 the faint suggestion that it presents a type. In the 
 scheme of Celibates the suggestion of presenting types 
 is more definite, but no more valuable. It is superfluous 
 to point out that the adoption of a type involves a purpose 
 beyond the purely creative purpose of the novelist. He 
 may, if he please, offer us a type of a sot, or a swindler, or 
 coward, politician, zany, boor, but he will scarcely interest 
 us if he gives lis merely a type ; and it is not wholly 
 absurd to insist on the simple truth that it is the task of 
 
97 
 
 an imaginative artist to create imaginatively, not intellectu- 
 ally, and to breathe into his characters an independent 
 life as wanton and self-sufficient as his own. 
 
 It is the defect of Celibates that the stories in the book 
 illustrate a theme ; they are written upon the idea of 
 celibacy, and every character is bitted and saddled alike. 
 You cannot wholly escape the notion that the stories are 
 intended to prove something, and even if you are willing 
 to accept the proofs, you are apt — such is the natural 
 wryness of the mind — to resent their interpolation in what 
 should be an imaginative work. ^ Mildred Lawson,' for 
 instance, the first of these little novels, begins excellently 
 and runs naturally until the first lover of this celibate dies ; 
 and there the story might have ended, perhaps a little 
 subtly, but surely a sufficient ending. Instead, it begins 
 over again and begins differently, as though to bring a 
 fresh piece of evidence to the argument ; and the delicacy 
 of the earlier impression is ruined. ... I know it is 
 egregious to deprive a novelist of his right to his own 
 story, but I cannot help feeling that Moore has robbed us 
 of our rights in his characters ; the rights, I mean, that 
 a reader may properly assert in characters which he is 
 invited to endenizen in some close corner of his brain. 
 The dictation of a formula is felt even in the first chapter, 
 where Mildred too artlessly unfolds her antecedents in a 
 meditation of loneliness ; you are given a summary of 
 relevant facts as coldly and as formally as might be in 
 the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division. Again, in 
 tempting a second lover she becomes psychologically 
 inconsistent with the Mildred of the first part, and is 
 merely a ludicrous liar, the texture of the story being 
 grossly coarsened for the sake of the argument. And 
 again the reader demurs. 
 
 An escape from the domination of the theme is hardly 
 achieved until the third story, ^ Agnes Lahens,' is reached ; 
 for this is no simple illustration of an argument, but a 
 
98 
 
 queer, painful episode of a genuine existence, an anticipa- 
 tion of Tchehov. The argument is subdued to the charac- 
 ters, and hence the interest is no longer extrinsic. It may 
 be admitted that the vileness of the Lahens circle is as pro- 
 found as need be, but it cannot be thought incredible ; nor 
 can the attitude of the child's father be thought incredible 
 in its pitiful protest against the foulness of his wife's 
 iridescence. ' One day I was told that as I paid for nothing 
 I had no right to grumble. Your mother said, in reply to 
 some question about me, that I was merely an expense. I 
 believe the phrase was considered very clever, it went 
 the round of society, and eventually was put into a play. 
 And that is why I told you that money is everything, that 
 it is difficult to be truthful, honourable, or respectable if 
 you have no money ; a little will do, but you must have 
 a little, if you haven't you aren't respectable, you're 
 nothing, you become a mere expense. . . . I've borne it 
 for your sake, dearest.' You may read the whole of the 
 few pages of this little novel without suspecting that an 
 argument has ever entered the author's head, for Agnes 
 and her father are not types but individual beings. 
 
 Between these two stories there stands ^ John Norton,' 
 a study in that religious sensualism which Moore himself 
 has called elsewhere terrible. Condensation has made it 
 easier to read but harder to appreciate, for in the earlier 
 version (^ A Mere Accident '), published eight years before, 
 you were not asked to take so much for granted, and 
 could test a little more accurately the weight of impulse 
 and circumstance. But now — ' the story will of course be 
 no more than an experimental demonstration of the work- 
 ing of the brain into which we are looking,' Cumbrous 
 phraseology, you will remark, and the experimental 
 demonstration in itself hardly less cumbrous ; the working 
 of the brain being manifested not only to the eye but also 
 to the ear in the creaking and clanking of the rudimentary 
 machine, which in this story performs the office of the 
 
99 
 
 brain. ... It loses another interest by the mutilation to 
 which it has been subjected^ since John Norton's early 
 fondness for Marius the Epicureayi and pictures by Monet, 
 Degas and Renoir indicates the author's tendency to write 
 autobiographically even in his immaturest work^ as well as 
 in his ripest. But mutilated as it is in Celibates, it yet 
 holds a horror of its own. I do not know what could have 
 possessed Moore to write this story, except the desire to 
 illustrate his types of celibacy by a morbid invention. 
 Consciousness of failure may be assumed, I fancy, from 
 the abstention from another experiment of this kind, for 
 which it is not wholly ungracious to offer a reader's 
 thanks ; although that consciousness does not prevent 
 his pondering a third version of the story nearly thirty 
 years later, and staring wistfully at the obstinate 
 stone. 
 
 Between Spring Days and Celibates there was published 
 a novel, Mike Fletcher, for which you must search the 
 second-hand book-shops and which Moore himself dis- 
 dains, including it with certain books to be reprinted 
 only as the work of a disciple — Amico Moorino. He is 
 not the only author who has mixed singularly good with 
 singularly bad books; the curious may be referred to 
 Thomas Hardy for another puzzling instance of the 
 instability of genius or intelligence. Between Tess of the 
 lyUrhervilles and Jude the Obscure you are confronted by 
 so immemorable a novel as J'he Well-Beloved, and, more 
 wonderful yet, between Far from the Madding Crowd 
 and The Return of the Native you are perplexed by The 
 Hand of Ethelberta. In Hardy's case this strange alterna- 
 tion seems to be due to a sluggish invention yielding 
 slowly to habits of industry, but in Moore's case to an 
 eager, fumbling uncertainty of his own mind and strength. 
 He presses hither and thither, experimenting and failing, 
 ardent and inconstant, yet maintaining with morose 
 patience his resolve to become a man of letters. He falls 
 
100 
 
 from A Drama in Muslin to Confessions of a Young Man, 
 rises a little to Spring Days and drops again like a be- 
 wildered bird down to the half- familiar depths of Mike 
 Fletcher; and once more he is miraculously ascendant 
 with Esther Waters, and once more falls with Evelyn Innes. 
 To follow the beating of his wings up and down the sky 
 yields the excitement of the incredible, for in a few brief 
 years extremes meet and inconsistency alone can be 
 counted upon. A splendid courage, truly, is it that 
 enables him to rise to Esther Waters ; a pathetic fallacy, 
 surely, that weighs him down with Mike Fletcher. 
 
 The fallacy, or the lure, is the strange fondness for 
 the corrupt and wanton, for Lewis Seymour and Mike 
 Fletcher, for Mildred Lawson and Evelyn Innes ; and 
 the strain of wantonness in Moore's intellectuality, ex- 
 pressed in so many of his characters and opinions, in 
 dramatic and undramatic utterances alike, responds only 
 too punctually to the stimulus of his subject. It is not 
 a mere simple fondness for shocking the easily shocked, 
 although that is a youthful proneness which he has never 
 wholly outgrown ; the corrupt mind genuinely interests 
 him, as luxury interests him in Evelyn Innes and poverty 
 in Esther Waters. All these engross his intellectual 
 sympathies, and unless the reader, too, finds corruption 
 and luxury as interesting as hate and love, revenge and 
 despair — if abstractions may be seriously discussed — the 
 novelist's repeated choice of subject and character may 
 be deplored. There is no interest in Mike Fletcher's 
 attempted outrage upon the conventual Lily, because 
 there is none in Mike himself, and Lily is but a foil to 
 his coarseness ; but when Richardson deals with the same 
 subject, and gives you the heart of Clarissa and the mind 
 of Lovelace, your own passionate interest is engaged 
 throughout the prodigious reiteration of his story. Moore 
 himself has taught us to be critical, and incident qua 
 incident does not delight, even though it be seduction. 
 
101 
 
 nor monologue qua monologue, even though it be licen- 
 tious. If character is wanting, then story is wanting and 
 all else is vain. 
 
 But this is to anticipate much that ought to be said 
 of Evelyn Lines, and meanwhile there is something else 
 to remark^ although that again is equally noticeable in 
 Pamell and His Island. I refer to our author's penurious 
 trick of using familiar material over and over again. 
 Fletcher, for example, returning to Dublin and after 
 prolonged absence calling on his father, finds him flute- 
 playing : ' Oh, is that you, Mike } — sit down,' is the 
 nonchalant salutation that greets him. The incident is 
 treasured up and used again (of Marshall) in Vale. Again, 
 Frank Escott reappears from Spnng Days, no longer the 
 careless youth but the editor of an impecunious review ; 
 and Lizzie Baker, shedding the virtue which dimly dis- 
 tinguished her in the earlier book, is at length become 
 his mistress. And Harding, the eternal cynic, the literary 
 ^^gy of Vain Fortune and A Modern Lover and I know 
 not how many other books, here again seeks to display 
 his damp squibs. Another small significant circumstance 
 is Fletcher's meditation upon a trilogy on the life of 
 Christ, a subject to be left for the maturer mind of our 
 author himself The influence of Balzac is still strong; 
 not until long, long after Mike Fletcher did it yield to the 
 influence of Turgenev, when, instead of Paris in London, 
 you were confronted with microcosmic Russia in Ireland, 
 and A Sportsman s Sketches begat The Untilled Field. 
 
 Perhaps I shall betray no very close secret in saying that 
 in 1920 George Moore had retreated sufficiently far from 
 the mood and manner of 1898 to decide that Evelyn Innes 
 and Sister Teresa should be shut out of the canon of his 
 works. His reasons for saying this will appear now and 
 justify him amply. They are simple and amount to this 
 — that both before and after writing Evelyn Innes he had 
 
102 
 
 written books so immeasurably superior^ and again I say 
 in mood and manner, that the shabby character of that 
 unfortunate work is rebuked beyond revival. But the 
 wisdom of the artist is often thwarted by the tenderness 
 of the parent, and a few months after he passed judgment 
 he appealed against it, saying, in the preface to the 
 revised text of The Lakcy that although he has very little 
 admiration for Evelyn Innes and Sister Teresa^ the writing 
 of them has been useful to him, for had he not written 
 them he could not have written The Lake or The Brook 
 Kerith. Hence it seemed ungrateful to refuse two of his 
 most successful books a place in the canon, merely 
 because they did not correspond with his aestheticism. . . . 
 On such points the author's word must be taken, and 
 though it is hard to see that the writing of Evelyn Lines 
 was an inevitable prelude to the writing of The Brook 
 Kerith, I cannot question the assertion ; all that can be 
 said, speaking still aesthetically, is that the price was 
 great. He follows the assertion with one of his many 
 wise dicta — A writer's aestheticism is his all ; he cannot 
 surrender it, for his art is dependent upon it. Neither 
 Moore nor any other artist has ever spoken more clearly 
 a fundamental truth ; and the interest of any study and 
 portrayal of our subject lies in the determination of that 
 aestheticism and the author's loyalty to it. My complaint 
 is that the aestheticism out of which Evelyn Innes was 
 shaped is obscure and shallow ; luckily it was a mere 
 disorderly quarterly tenant and not a freeholder, and 
 when it was cast out (never was such an emaciated 
 spectral being of ragged silks, coarse scent and arthritic 
 gait !) a better spirit entered in and besomed the house. 
 Moore himself cast it out, and I am only sorry that he 
 inclines to tenderness in saying that his single concession 
 to the wandering refugee is that if, when he is gone, an 
 overwhelming demand for Evelyn Innes and Sister Teresa 
 should arise, they must be reprinted from the original 
 
103 
 
 editions but offered to the public merely as apocrypha. 
 I wish that his aestheticism had been a little less 
 imperious when he made this concession. 
 
 Between Esther Waters and Evelyn Lines there was an 
 external change which had a marked effect upon the 
 novelist. Remarking upon the good achieved by Esther 
 Watersj he adds that it did evil to him, the evil that 
 surrounded him when he lifted his eyes and saw a hand- 
 some flat, peopled by Manet and Monet and Berthe 
 Morisot with spiritual creatures. The flowered carpet, 
 the pretty furniture, the satisfactory cook — all represented 
 evil ; for this * thoroughly healthy ' book had demoralized 
 its author. It is pleasant to think that the best of the 
 earlier books should have been the most successful also, 
 and we have no solid ground for assuming that if our 
 author had lived a long life of privation he would have 
 avoided the snare of Evelyn Innes. No ! the demoralization 
 that leaps hugely before us is a purely aesthetic demoraliza- 
 tion, symbolized almost perfectly in the contrast of the 
 dominant house in Esther Waters, the simple, busy home 
 of the Barfields on the Sussex Downs, with the dominant 
 house of Evelyn Innes, in Park Lane, with flashing horses 
 always waiting outside. The external impression of 
 Evelyn Innes is a strange one ; few novels are so lavishly 
 furnished, so luxuriously upholstered. There is a story 
 in Salve which amusingly illustrates this : — 
 
 'Apologizing for spoiling the story, Sir Thornley 
 told me I must take for granted the racy description 
 of two workmen who had come to Upper Ely Place 
 to mend the drains in front of my house. After 
 having dug a hole, they took a seat at either end, 
 and sat spitting into it from time to time in solemn 
 silence, until at last one said to the other, " Do you 
 know the fellow that lives in the house forninst us } 
 You don't } Well, I'll tell you who he is : he's the 
 fellow that wrote Evelyn Innes." '^And who was 
 she ? " " She was a great opera-singer. And the story 
 
104 
 
 is all about the ould hat. She was lying on a crimson 
 sofa with mother-of-pearl legs when the baronet came 
 into the room, his eyes jumping out of his head and 
 he as hot as be damned. Without as much as a 
 good-morrow, he jumped down on his knees alongside 
 of her, and the next chapter is in Italy." ' 
 
 Quotation readily shows the aesthetic disintegration so 
 thinly concealed, and if the style appears incredible the 
 task of proving it authentic may be left to Moore himself. 
 Certainly his own word might be asked, in proof that this 
 is indeed by the author of The Lake, written not long after ; 
 it is a passage describing the first meeting between an 
 innocent and devout Catholic girl and Sir Owen Asher, 
 Bart. :— 
 
 ' Her intense consciousness of this tall, aristocratic 
 man frightened her. She saw the embroidered waist- 
 coat, the slight hips, the gold moustache, and the 
 sparkling grey eyes asked her questions to which her 
 whole nature violently responded, and although her 
 feelings were inexplicable to herself, she was overcome 
 with physical shame.' 
 
 The second meeting repeats the impression : — 
 
 ' In a sort of dream, through a sort of mist, she saw 
 the embroidered waistcoat and the gold moustache, 
 and when the small, grey, smiling eyes were raised 
 from her father's face and looked at her, a delicious 
 sensation penetrated through the very tissues of her 
 flesh, and she experienced the tremor of a decisive 
 moment ; and then there came again a gentle sense 
 of delicious bewilderment and illusion.' 
 
 Throughout, the story is the same — their sense is with 
 their senses all mixed in. Moore dedicated Evelyn Iniies 
 to Mr. Arthur Symons and Mr. W. B. Yeats, 'Two con- 
 temporary writers with whom I am in sympathy ; ' and I 
 am amused to note the parallel currents of Moore's and 
 Mr. Symons's works. For Moore is a prey to influences 
 and streams of tendency. Moore and Mr. Symons have 
 
105 
 
 been fascinated by the French, one mainly by Manet and 
 the rest, the other by Mallarme and the rest. Each has 
 been attracted by Baudelaire, and then by Verlaine, but 
 Moore has revolted from Baudelaire instead of merely 
 neglecting him. Each has been subjugated by Pater, 
 each writes carefully, one better than Pater, the other 
 worse. Evelyn Innes shows Moore wonderfully concerning 
 himself with Saint Teresa and Crashaw ; Mr. Symons's 
 poems show an equally remarkable concern with Patmorean 
 odes and St. John of the Cross. 
 
 Intellectual sympathies, however, are sometimes im- 
 perfect and sometimes transient. Evelyn Innes is a novel 
 of the 'nineties rather than of a particular author, and, 
 like much of the work of the 'nineties, it provides a sub- 
 morality for the use of those who care to note it. There 
 are pages in the book which form only too minatory a 
 sermon upon the terrible monotony of wantonness, a 
 monotony not broken even by Evelyn's hint to her 
 confessor of unlimited lasciviousness beyond the moderate 
 sexual life which she believed was maintained between 
 husband and wife. Thankful enough are we to the 
 discreet confessor who interrupted the luxury of this 
 abasement with, ' You have said enough on that point ; ' 
 although his interruption was only half effectual. Evelyn, 
 in fact, is Moore's chief example of the wanton, the ivy 
 woman whose body alone thinks ; her weakness as a type 
 is that she lives in his book not for herself and of herself, 
 but to assist towards — what.'' The first English novel of 
 passion ! 
 
 It is by a sheer fatality, then, that for counterpart 
 to Evelyn he falls back upon Sir Owen Asher, whose grave 
 occupation was the seduction of his friends' wives and who 
 is introduced to you with a remark with which he had 
 embarrassed his reigning mistress — ' Of course marriage is 
 necessary ; you can't have husbands without marriage, and 
 if there were no husbands, who would look after our 
 
106 
 
 mistresses ? ' A sheer fatality is Owen in a novel of passion, 
 for a virgin passion is wanted and Owen is impotent for 
 the purpose. Moore's own view, again, is that a man 
 with ten thousand a year is not a possible subject for art ; 
 and although I do not admit a purely arbitrary limitation, 
 I cannot forget that Owen has twenty thousand a year; 
 for the author never permits that to be forgotten. An 
 accomplished seducer, when he obtains Evelyn he fears 
 to lose her as he has lost others, dreading most of all the 
 first intimations of reviving morality or religion ; for had 
 he not found that when a wanton begins to weary of her 
 lover she preludes her sighs for another by obstinate 
 questionings about morality or religion ? He seeks, there- 
 fore, to seduce her intelligence in order to command 
 her sense's loyalty, drenching her mind with Spencer, 
 Darwin and Huxley ; hence the book itself is soaked 
 with an attempted philosophy of sensualism, a philosophy 
 expressed partly by Owen and partly by his successor, 
 Ulick Dean — Dean relying upon Blake instead of Spencer 
 for his success. He taught her, for instance, on Blake's 
 authority, that we must seek to exalt ourselves, to live in 
 the idea ; and though sexual passion was an inferior state, 
 mean content was the true degradation. ' In the pauses 
 of their love-making, they often wandered round the walls 
 participating in the mystery of the Wanderers, and the 
 sempiternal loveliness of figures who stood with raised 
 arms by the streams of Paradise. It seemed a profanation 
 to turn from these aspirations to the enjoyment of material 
 love, and Evelyn looked at Ulick questioningly. But 
 he said that life only became wrong when it ceased to 
 aspire.' . . . Dean gives a varnish of mysticism to the hard 
 surface of materialism prepared by his rival, and in this 
 aspect the book is a modern Harlot's Progress. Just as 
 Owen had swept her off to Paris and pleased her with 
 the fripperies of expensive women's shops (' Owen's taste 
 was for garters, and the choice of a pair filled them with a 
 
107 
 
 pleasurable embarrassment '), so Uliek sweeps her out of 
 Owen's power and teases her with metaphysical fripperies 
 not less delightful. 
 
 For Evelyn was truly ivy : — ' Obedience is a divine 
 sensualism ; it is the sensualism of the saints ; its lassitudes 
 are animated with deep pauses and thrills of love and 
 worship.' ^ No sensuality,' says Moore, in another book, ' is 
 so terrible as religious sensuality.' Her conversion is 
 but an introverted sensualism, springing partly from the 
 perplexities which naturally abound when an opera singer 
 has committed herself to two lovers ; and her own account 
 of that conversion is amusing enough when she says in 
 dismissing Owen : ' We have only a certain amount of force. 
 A certain amount goes to support life, and the rest we 
 may expend upon a lover, or upon our spiritual life.' — A 
 longer passage is needed to illustrate the development of 
 the wanton : — 
 
 ' By a special dispensation from the Reverend 
 Mother, her watch before the sacrament was increased 
 from half an hour to an hour ; she was therefore put 
 on an equality with the choir nuns ; and kneeling 
 before the sacrament she thought of God as intimately 
 AS she dared, excluding all thought of the young 
 Galilean prophet and seer, allowing herself to think 
 only of the exquisite doctrine. She did not wish 
 Him to take her in His arms until one day, starting 
 suddenly from her prayers, she asked who it was who 
 stood before her. She seemed to see Him among 
 His disciples, sitting at a small table with a love-light 
 upon His face. She scrutinized the face, fearing it 
 might not be His. She seemed to have seen it. 
 Presently she discovered Ulick ; and tremblingly she 
 remembered the night she found him among his 
 disciples. So she did not dare to think of Christ any 
 longer; and with regret and tenderness, and yet 
 with a certain exaltation of spirit, she turned to the 
 Father, to the original essence which had existed 
 before the world needed a redeemer. She lost 
 
108 
 
 herself for a time in the vast spirit which hears the 
 song of Nature through space and the ages. But very 
 soon she turned to the young Galilean prophet again, 
 and His exquisite doctrine seemed to her to be all 
 that a man needs to bring to perfect fruition the 
 original germ of immortality implanted in him.* 
 
 Evelyn Innes is not a novel of passion, but of intellectual 
 sensualism. Culture and mammon do their best to be 
 exalted, passionate, distraught; they remain at heart elegant 
 and vulgar. Moore's interest in passion — and clearly he 
 means passion as the French see it — is an intellectual 
 interest ; out of his critical contempt for the narrow range 
 of the English novel he has projected a little world in 
 which passion shall spin the plot, and the English novel at 
 length burst the straight bonds of custom and prejudice. 
 Once again Balzac beckons him with the enormous impro- 
 visations of his comedie humaine, but the energy of Balzac 
 is wanting. 
 
 Dogmatism is easy and foolish, yet I cannot help saying 
 that in attempting his novel of passion in English, for an 
 English audience, Moore was heavily handicapped. The 
 English genius is distinguished in this from the Latin 
 genius, that its attempts in this kind have not achieved 
 success but have wallowed obscurely in dim circles far 
 below, shifting furtively between vulgarity and stupidity. 
 It is an obvious gibe to say that the novel of passion needs 
 passion for its success, and no one will want to gibe at 
 Moore's attempt or deny that passion is absent from it ; 
 for appetite is not passion. When (in Sister Teresa) 
 Evelyn turns from opera to prayer, it is not a revolt 
 against sin but a simple revulsion of the tired mind and 
 body ; her sense and not her soul is sick, and she no more 
 sways your sympathies as a convert than as a mere wanton. 
 She foreshadows quite exactly the externality of Doris and 
 the nameless lover of Doris in 'The Lovers of Orelay.' 
 The merest echo of passion is that which you detect in the 
 
109 
 
 lavish and unflagging chapters of musical experiences and 
 criticism ; at the name of Palestrina Moore's eye brightens, 
 at the name of Wagner his ears tingle and he bends all 
 his powers upon the communication of his pleasure. His 
 own enthusiasm for the Rhinegold, for instance, his vivid 
 memory of that astonished first hearing, hinted at rather 
 than described in Hail ajid Fareivell, are the prompters of 
 the prolonged musical disquisitions in Evelyn Innes. Not 
 even his youthful excitement at the first reading of 
 Shelley exceeded the intensity of his excitement on first 
 hearing Wagner ; and the chapters begotten of that 
 fascination are at any rate written with a full heart. 
 Sensuality exalted into something so high and fine as 
 to have become almost spiritual-minded — that note of 
 music's power is the note which he has surely touched 
 in this novel; for it was first touched in himself; and 
 he writes truly only that which he writes out of his 
 own heart. 
 
 It is, again, the author that speaks in the attitude 
 towards the Catholic Church. The sharp resentment 
 of later writings is not traceable here, for music has 
 softened the harshness of dogma accepted or dogma 
 opposed, and the constraint of the religious life is never 
 made ridiculous. I cannot imagine the thoughts of a 
 Catholic upon the conversion of our operatic Magdalene, 
 nor can I imagine his judgment upon her egoism when 
 it wears the religious habit ; but I can easily imagine 
 Monsignor Mostyn pausing before he again cries to an 
 errant beauty. Get thee to a nunnery ! You are asked to 
 believe that peace comes when Evelyn loses her voice, 
 and perhaps a symbol is here of the spiritual gain from 
 carnal loss; but did her egoism exist only in her 
 marvellous voice } Alas, not so easily do mortals escape 
 from the weakness of their being; and if our author 
 should cast upon Evelyn such a musing regard as he 
 gives to Violet Scully's future, he would find a teasing 
 
110 
 
 problem for his fancy. Probably his later exasperation 
 with the Catholic Church, and in particular with the 
 priesthood, would tempt him anew into the rich per- 
 versities recorded in Hail and Farewell, and in the pages 
 dealing with his sudden discovery of an antagonism 
 between Catholicism and literature. But such an 
 epilogue would make the story even less a novel ot 
 passion. 
 
 ' I sat wondering/ says the author of Ave in speaking of 
 the joy which a reading of Esther Waters gave him some 
 years after its publication — ' I sat wondering how it could 
 have happened to me to write the book that among all 
 books I should have cared most to write, and to have 
 written it so much better than I ever dreamed it could 
 be written.' 
 
 It is from Esther Waters that Moore has derived the 
 only pleasure which his books have given him, unless 
 his experience since Hail and Farewell should tempt him 
 to qualify that statement now ; and he speaks frankly of 
 the unhappiness and anxieties that his writings always 
 cause him — an experience common to creative minds. A 
 harmless joy is his term for that pleasure, and he con- 
 gratulates himself somewhat surprisingly that this book, 
 though pure of all intention to alleviate suffering, has 
 perhaps done more good than any other novel written in 
 his generation ; a concession to popular demands, surely, 
 which George Moore would ordinarily be loth to make, 
 especially since it may be freely admitted. The goodness 
 of Esther Waters is a subject which we may contemplate 
 now without reference to alien standards, and all that 
 need be added is the remark that the moral value of the 
 book was not originally undisputed. But the confusion 
 of art with morals is senseless, if almost inevitable, and 
 certainly has no use here except as an indication of the 
 commonplace to which the bright mind may sink. 
 
Ill 
 
 ' As characteristically English as Don Quixote is Spanish,' 
 cried the author on another occasion, referring to Esther 
 Waters ; and at another time : the only English novel that 
 treated a servant-girl seriously, as chief person of the 
 drama. And again, it was the Englishman in him that 
 wrote the book ; and yet again, was it likely that he who 
 had written the most English of all novels should be able 
 to describe Ireland ? Could he write at all except about 
 England, and in leaving England and his inspiration wasn't 
 he leaving a literary career behind ? — More precisely, he 
 remembers that the book was written in the Temple, and 
 again the recollection pricks him with the notion that he 
 would have written better if he had stayed there ; for it 
 was in the Temple that his poor laundress used to tell him 
 every day of her troubles, and through her he became 
 acquainted with the life of poor people, and spontaneous 
 sympathy and kindness grew. How mean we seem when 
 we look back ! He gave her five pounds when he left, 
 and with a candour that helps to redeem the coldness, he 
 confesses to having forgotten to answer the laundress's 
 son, who asked him to help her in old age. . . . She 
 did not inspire the subject of Esther Waters, it appears, 
 but she gave the atmosphere required for the book ; a 
 talk with her at breakfast being an excellent preparation 
 for the day's writing. 
 
 Esther Waters, then, was born in London, the fruit of an 
 unequal match. It is hard to dispute that it is the most 
 English of all novels if a saving clause, since Tom 
 Jones and David Copperjieklj be added. A single sen- 
 tence in a newspaper gave him the subject of Esther 
 Waters— ^V^e re always complaining of the annoyance 
 that servants occasion us, but do we ever think of the 
 annoyance we occasion servants } ' Pondering upon that 
 as he stepped out, he rejected the notion of a young lady 
 in love with her footman (a mere incident in the story as 
 we read it now), and imagined a girl, a kitchen-maid. 
 
112 
 
 anxious to get a living. He thought that on fourteen 
 pounds a year she could not rear her illegitimate child, 
 but needed sixteen pounds. The life of a human being 
 valued at two pounds a year was the subject, and before 
 he had passed from the Temple to the Law Courts the 
 story was decided upon. It is a story in which character 
 and incident are balanced and interdependent ; and if it 
 has an excellence beyond our insular achievement it is the 
 excellence of form. Pity that form should be regarded 
 so often as negligible ; but Moore at any rate has been 
 admonished that creation demands form, and that in the 
 medium of prose the presence of form is essential even 
 if it be half concealed — like unwearing rocks, that shape 
 the current of the tide — and showing only at moments of 
 ebbing inspiration. The evil Victorian tradition of the 
 formless, a tradition disastrously honoured in Tennyson's 
 In Memoriam and Thackeray's Vanity Fair and Meredith's 
 Diana of the Crossways, is a tradition which George Moore 
 has been among the first to disturb. If the admonition 
 came from France or Russia, if it came in fact from his 
 admired Turgenev, it was an admonition to which his 
 whole intelligence responded with the eagerness of a 
 mirror to the light. His earlier novels had wanted this 
 care, and although A Mummer's Wife, for example, had 
 a beginning and an end (two parts of the obvious want), 
 it lacked the continual evidences of a shaping spirit which 
 are to be detected in the later masterpiece. And if it be 
 acknowledged that the exact repetition, in the opening 
 sentences of the conclusion, of the first lines of the first 
 chapter, forms too rigid a pattern, it is the largest con- 
 cession that need or shall be made. Esther Waters has a 
 beginning and an end, and because all between is an easy, 
 harmonious development, flowing like water to a stream 
 or like branches to autumn and winter, the quiet end has 
 the beauty of music and clouds. The story sinks in the 
 west, clouds are lit and dimmed, and while a laggard 
 
113 
 
 blackbird still sings, Esther Waters, her son and her 
 mistress stand clear and firm in the twilight, and the 
 shadows of departed characters, William and Randall and 
 Ketley and Sarah, step from obscurity and resume their 
 places beside them. The close of the book is a luminous 
 example of the formalizing effect of unity. ... I have 
 not attempted a definition of form in relation to a novel ; 
 it is suggested by the metaphors just used. It is the 
 result of the co-operation of imagination with intelli- 
 gence, of imagination working upon intelligence, at once 
 sustained and strengthened by the sober counsels and 
 curbings of the lower power. Put it more simply, and 
 so far as it can be described as an effect rather than an 
 influence, it is the result of the artist's complete posses- 
 sion by a definite idea, to which he is fain to give the 
 shape, members and unity of a natural creation. It is not 
 easily achieved, nor achieved at all by any who lacks the 
 passion and discipline of art. 
 
 The trunk of the tree is Esther herself. That it was 
 left to an Irishman to create this typical Englishwoman 
 is not at all singular, for what was needed was neither 
 Englishman nor Irishman but simply a man of genius who 
 should be capable, as Moore candidly avows, of holding 
 the mirror steadily up to a particular phase of ' nature.' 
 This attractive, blunt-featured Cockney servant, with a 
 religious severity imposed upon natural honesty, has the 
 literal fidelity of a photograph and the warm animation 
 of a painting. Could Manet have repaid Moore's constant 
 lauds by a critical appraisal of his disciple's work, he 
 would have found his sufficient occasion in this portrait. 
 The triumph is the more delightful when the portrait 
 is contrasted with the sketches in Mike Fletcher among 
 the earlier and Evelyn Lines among later novels. The 
 punctiliously but not quite perfectly revised text of 
 1920 (the book was first published in 1894 and 
 Moore's growth as a writer of English prose is mainly 
 I 
 
114 
 
 twentieth-century) gives a precise impression of the 
 physical woman in the description with which the book 
 opens : ' A girl of twenty, firmly built with short, strong 
 arms and a plump neck that carried a well-turned head 
 with dignity. Her well-formed nostrils redeemed her 
 somewhat thick, fleshy nose, and it was a pleasure to 
 see her grave, almost sullen, face light with sunny 
 humour ; for when she laughed a line of almond-shaped 
 teeth showed between red lips.' And towards the close of 
 the book, when the too-cunning or too-simple repetition 
 of the first movement begins, the description is : ' A woman 
 of seven or eight and thirty, stout and strongly built, short 
 arms and hard-worked hands, dressed in dingy black skirt 
 and a threadbare jacket too thin for the dampness of a 
 November day. Her face was a blunt outline, and the 
 grey eyes reflected all the natural prose of the Saxon.' 
 But the truth of the book does not depend upon explicit 
 but rather upon implicit things ; and of these the chief is 
 Esther's own regard of her early lapse. A girl of religious 
 tradition and training, she is not appalled by her betrayal ; 
 she does not become a tragical creature, impressive and 
 grotesque, or a type of woman's weakness ; she is conscious 
 of social disgrace without raging at that disgrace, and her 
 native religiousness is untouched. The temptation to 
 heroics is so steadily resisted that I wonder if Moore was 
 tempted at all ; rather is it likely that, possessed by his 
 theme, not one of a million devils had power over him 
 — not even that simian devil of sensuality who comes so 
 quickly if Moore but whispers, had power to seduce the 
 artist from his art. Happy are those whom an engrossing 
 task secures against temptation ! 
 
 One objection to Esther Waters has often been rehearsed 
 — that for all its skill and verisimilitude, it fails in ani- 
 mation and heat, being written from without and not 
 from within, coldly and not fondly. The charge is some- 
 what vague, and the vindication can be little less 
 
115 
 
 vague, if more strenuous. I think it is the presence 
 of form in a rare degree that suggests coldness; the 
 uncommon quality being assumed to exclude a common 
 quality quite inevitably. But that exclusion is far from 
 inevitable ; it is merely the slackness of the mind that 
 calls violence power, and restraint coldness. Argument 
 of this kind, however, is too abstract to be useful ; turn 
 rather to the pages in which Esther watches her husband 
 die. It is conceivable that restraint may be mistaken for 
 coldness, but if it is my business to distinguish, I do not 
 find it hard to distinguish tenderness there. 
 
 Let it be granted, nevertheless, that passionate heights 
 and deeps are not touched in this novel ; but let it also be 
 granted that they are not within its aim. The naturalistic 
 novel moves within definite limits, and it has not the 
 power of Ariel to fly or run at will. Of the French 
 naturalists it has been said that they found life unpleasant 
 and left it hideous ; but the excesses of reaction are a 
 commonplace. The French naturalists reacted against 
 romance, and in turn the symbolists reacted against their 
 predecessors. Moore is the most eminent of those who 
 have sought to transplant or maintain the naturalistic 
 formula, but I have already called attention to his 
 apostasy from the ardours of Zola. In another book he 
 has said that a man may write twenty volumes of poetry, 
 history and philosophy, but a man will never be born who 
 will write more than two, at the most three, naturalistic 
 novels ; the naturalistic novel being the essence of a phase 
 of life that the writer has lived in and assimilated. . . . 
 Esther Waters was clearly conceived in that tradition, and 
 it happened that the tradition, lightly observed and 
 sparingly infringed, offered the ideal opportunity for a 
 faithfully English novel. Written in another tradition, 
 it might have gained a romantic attraction and lost in 
 fidelity. Yet it differs utterly from Celibates, in that its 
 restrictions relate to form and not to idea. Celibates, I 
 
116 
 
 have said, is spoiled by the domination of a theme ; the 
 theme of Esther Waters is enhanced by the observance of 
 form. 
 
 Esther Waters has a special interest for its author, since 
 it shared the fate of A Modern Lover and A Mummers 
 Wife — it was banned by the libraries whose circulation 
 was still at the mercy of strange cerebral congestions. 
 The insult and the injury have not yet been forgiven, and 
 in Avowals you may see Moore's resentment bursting into 
 new flame, and again that queer resolve to justify the book 
 by the good it achieved ; the new proof being that four years 
 after Esther Waters was published a nurse was so impressed 
 by it that she renounced the projected foundation of a 
 convalescent home, and started a home for the infants 
 of unmarried working mothers. I could understand his 
 insistence upon the practical argument if he were still 
 pleading with Mudie's, Smith's and the rest; I fail to 
 understand that insistence when he is pleading the cause 
 of art before the privileged few for whom privately printed 
 books such as Avoivals are issued. To one creative writer 
 was it given to reconcile now and again the imaginative 
 and the moral ; by sheer pressure of genius Tolstoi 
 was able to constrain the wine of a supreme imagination 
 into the bottles of a dogmatic morality. I do not suggest 
 that his art was the worse for this noble attempt, I do 
 not see that it is better; but the attempt assuredly 
 manifests the superb strength of the Russian realist. 
 ' Always more of a moralist than an artist I ' cries our author 
 of Tolstoi, forgetting that in his inconstant fusion of the 
 two Tolstoi becomes one of the great shaking forces of 
 the modern world ; and naturally repelled by his huge, 
 dark, irregular genius as by a wild mountain storm. 
 
 It is scarcely a derogation to say that in neither 
 imaginative nor moral power is George Moore the equal 
 of Tolstoi. Faithfulness to his subject is Moore's ex- 
 cellence, not the imaginative intensification of the subject. 
 
117 
 
 Turning from Ivan Ilyitch to Esther Waters you turn 
 without shame, although aware of a descent from clouded 
 heights to easy plain; but from Ivan Ilyitch — nay, from 
 Esther Waters itself to Lewis Seymour or Mike Fletcher you 
 cannot pass without shame, sorrow, nausea. . . . Moore's 
 master was first Balzac and then Turgenev; he turned 
 from force to beauty, from energy to order, and it is not 
 complainingly that his inevitable choice is noted here, if 
 choice it can be called that was so purely dictated by an 
 alert, unimpassioned nature. 
 
 It is characteristic of our author, as we shall have other 
 occasions of noting, that the theme of Esther Waters 
 haunted him like a remembered phrase of his admired 
 Wagner until (in 1911) he had turned his novel into a 
 play. A French actress wanted to take the part of 
 Esther, and so the first three acts (as good as the novel, 
 he thinks) were written and the last two stitched on 
 during rehearsals. He had never put his back into a 
 play, but now he made an attempt, and if I hazard the 
 crude opinion that the result was a novel in dramatic 
 form, I am driven to admit that this opinion was 
 apparently not shared by the Stage Society, which 
 produced Esther Waters, a Play in Five Acts. The division 
 into five acts is purely arbitrary, and made evident by 
 the resources of the printer rather than the art of the 
 author. Moore's dilemma may have been a concealed 
 one, but it was real enough. To adhere closely to the 
 story of the novel was impossible if a good play was to 
 be written; to depart from it was to provoke resentful 
 comparisons. Let well alone ! is the appeal of the reader, 
 an appeal which becomes urgent as he turns the last 
 pages of the play. Compared with the art of drama, the 
 novelist's art is slow in development as a growing oak ; 
 but the play moves with the swiftness of a building of 
 five floors. And is it not a pity to cut down a mature. 
 
118 
 
 green-leaved tree for the purposes of a dramatic house ? 
 I shall have occasion to note in a moment the strange itch 
 that touches Moore (as it has touched worse artists) when 
 he looks upon the easy-seeming success of the theatre. 
 It is as if he said in his secret mind — for even Moore has 
 a secret mind for his work, which all his frankness does 
 not betray — Look at this play and that play by such and 
 another worthless author; a play made out of a novel, 
 and running for a hundred nights. Isn't Esther Waters 
 a far better novel, and can't I make a no less superior 
 play? — Well, he has tried, but it is a play in which the 
 dramatic does not happen. There is not a half-note ot 
 difference between the pitch of one act and another. A 
 different ending is provided, but the reader is pre-con- 
 vinced that a different ending will be a weak ending — as 
 it proves ; and on the other hand such undramatic scenes 
 are faithfully retained as that of the dispute between the 
 servants over the Silver Braid sweepstakes. It is not 
 an isolated flatness. Moore's preface to the play ends 
 amusingly : — 
 
 'Esther Waters was produced by Mr. Clifford Brooke, 
 and from the first rehearsal he seemed to have the 
 entire play in his head, and to see it on the stage in 
 its every detail. So I never interfered ; there was 
 no necessity. Once I did interfere. It seemed to 
 me preferable that the prayer should be recited in the 
 middle of the stage in front of the audience, and in 
 this it appears I was wrong; at all events, a well- 
 known actress, and one of great talent, complained of 
 this bit of stage management. Her suggestion was 
 that Esther should hide her face in a cushion; that 
 would give an idea of family prayers, and from the 
 point of view of the public and the artistic producer 
 I am sure she is right; but as I very seldom write 
 plays and shall never own a theatre, nobody need 
 be seriously annoyed because I think everything 
 outside of the text and the acting is mere vulgarity.' 
 
119 
 
 The natural jealousy of the artist, upon which the whole 
 craft of the stage so unerringly infringes, has seldom been 
 more sharply expressed ; for Moore's anxiety to write a 
 play is after all a subordinate anxiety, and his insistence 
 upon the supremacy of his own kingdom remains un- 
 weakened. At any rate, failure as a dramatic writer has 
 not weakened his conviction, and there has been no 
 success to sap it. ^Everything outside of the text and 
 the acting is mere vulgarity ' — yes, he is at times con- 
 temptuous of the theatre, even if that contempt wears 
 the hue of envy ; for he is not removed from the weakness 
 of the wise and the failings of those who have succeeded. 
 
 Esther Waters^ a Play in Five ActSj is not the only one of 
 his books in which the preface atones for the disappoint- 
 ment that follows it. It was while listening to an actress 
 who took a minor part in the Stage Society's performance 
 that the author murmured, ' There is no doubt that acting 
 tells something that no other art can tell.' But if you 
 ask what it is, Moore does not answer ; it is an unguessed 
 secret, and anxious as he is to guess it and achieve a 
 victory over the alien medium, a secret it remains. His 
 natural jealousy reappears in his allusion to another 
 actress who did not think that Mrs. Rivers would speak 
 of suckling her baby ; to which his retort was that he did 
 not propose to reopen with her the question of his choice 
 of a profession ; a retort which many might wish to make 
 and few utter aloud, and fewer yet record as uttered. 
 Moore smooths out the allusion with an added — 'I've 
 nothing but good to say of everybody ; the little fault- 
 finding being very little indeed.' 
 
 The sharp itch for the drama may not have been wholly 
 responsible for that oddly-begotten play. The Bending of 
 the Boughj but I cannot believe that Moore wrote it 
 without trying to write as well as he could. The Bending 
 of the Bough confesses the influence of Ibsen more plainly 
 than The Strike at Ar ling ford, but it shares equally with the 
 
120 
 
 earlier play a harshness of subject and a dulness of tone 
 surprising in our author. The harshness and dulness are 
 happily redeemed by speeches which make agreeable 
 additions to experimental philosophy, even while they 
 diminish the dramatic interest for which you needs must 
 look somewhat narrowly, if not quite in vain. Kir wan the 
 mystic utters those truths which Mr. Yeats, distant pupil 
 of aery philosophers, must often have dropped into the 
 playwright's ear — ' You were dissatisfied even with the 
 earth under your feet ; the air was empty of supersensuous 
 life. . . . There are only two chains, the material and the 
 spiritual . . . there is but one way to attain the spiritual, 
 and that is by sacrifice.' Assuredly Mr. Martyn was 
 sardonically gratified if he read this version of his own 
 despised play, and perhaps turned to the preface with a 
 simpler pleasure to note how heartily Moore despised the 
 theatre, from which — in writing, scenery and acting alike 
 — intellect had been sullenly excluded. Art was produced 
 in the youth of a nation. It had left England, but in its 
 bewildered passage might it not rest for a space on that 
 forlorn Atlantic island where the Irish Literary Theatre 
 was lifting a wan head ? . . . The preface, save in antici- 
 patory phrases, is hardly the work of the author who was 
 about to draw from Ireland his rarest impulse ; but had it 
 been tenfold brighter and lighter, it could not vivify a 
 dull play. One beautiful prelusive passage might be 
 noted — ' In artistic England the pallor of centuries shines 
 in the inactive autumn air. The thrush is silent, the 
 nightingale has flown, and the robin sits on the coral 
 hedge piping his little roundelay.' 
 
 A far better play is The Coming of Gahrielle, the re- 
 written form of the comedy which originally bore the title 
 Elisabeth Cooper. That it should have been neglected by 
 those obscure Incomprehensibles, the theatrical managers, 
 may appear astonishing. Something of the quality of 
 Congreve's dialogue — and Moore is among the admirers of 
 that alert elegance of action and speech which enchants 
 
121 
 
 the reader of Love for Love and The Way of the World — 
 has been preserved in The Coming of Gahrielle, and tempts 
 one to indignation at delays exceeding the law's ; for I 
 think it cannot often happen that a play that is so truly a 
 comedy is neither rejected nor produced. The changes 
 which have been wrought in the original composition are 
 valuable, but even in Elizabeth Cooper there is much of 
 the wit and lightness of the new version. Moore's atti- 
 tude towards the theatre is once again freely expressed in 
 the preface, in which he condemns the realistic play even 
 while he yields a faint obeisance to it. He would revert 
 to, and start from, the old five-act comedy form, each act 
 with its several scenes changed before the eyes of the 
 spectator; for in such a form there would be room for 
 more story, variety, life. The story, once again, is the 
 thing. — ^Well, there is story, complexity, movement in 
 The Coming of Gabrielle, even without this reversion to an 
 earlier type ; but if the author may be credited, not the 
 greatest of public success would induce him to write 
 another play, his thirst having been slaked in the writing 
 of this sole comedy that pleases him. It is as if he had 
 tried and tried again, and having at last succeeded and 
 convinced himself that he could write not only novel, 
 romance, reminiscence, and essay, but comedy as well, and 
 therefore was so much the more completely a man of 
 letters, he was content with this single, conclusive proof, 
 and, indeed, no longer envious but merely proud. Gabri- 
 elle herself I can conceive as a brilliant triumph on the 
 stage, granting the discovery of an actress superlatively 
 endowed with vivacity and intelligence, able to match 
 with hers the brightness of the later Congreve. That the 
 theme of the play is merely a deception which does not 
 deceive, concluding with a light revenge foregone, will 
 not blind the reader to the dramatic excitement of a per- 
 formance, even if it be played only within his own brain 
 by the nimble and capricious puppets of imagination. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 NON DOLET! 
 
The parts 1 most esteeme in my selfe, reape more 
 honor by accusing then by commending my selfe. 
 And that's the cause I more often fall into them 
 againe and rest upon them. But when all the 
 cardes be told, a man never speakes of himselfe 
 without losse. A man's own condemnations are 
 ever increased : praises ever decreased. — Montaigne, 
 
THE year 1887 saw the publication of a curious, 
 chaotic book, Pamell and His Island, a study in a 
 forsaken mode of political-social interests, with the familiar 
 Balzacian interventions and interludes. It is not the 
 Moore we best know that writes — ' And still dreaming of 
 my Irish France, I listened to the monotonous story of a 
 broken barrel-organ, and, looking at the poor devil of an 
 Italian, I knew well that nobody here, except perhaps the 
 distiller, is rich enough to throw him a penny.' The same 
 forgotten disciple writes of Dublin — 'Town of miserable 
 vice and hideous decrepitude ; ' and of the Shelburne — 
 *The pen of a Balzac would be necessary to describe it.' . . . 
 The country exudes the damp, flaccid, evil smell of 
 poverty, and never has he observed in the peasantry the 
 slightest aesthetic intention ; never was a pot of flowers 
 seen in the cottage window of an Irish Celt. 
 
 The scenes of the book, he says, have been chosen 
 because they seemed typical and picturesque aspects of a 
 primitive country and barbarous people. Unconcerned 
 with this or that interest, indifferent to this or that 
 opinion, his desire was to produce a series of pictures to 
 touch the fancy of the reader as a Japanese ivory or fan, 
 combinations of hue and colour calculated to awake in 
 him fictitious feelings of pity, curiosity and nostalgia of 
 the unknown. But have these scenes been * chosen ' at 
 all } I call the book chaotic, and a slight gla.ice will 
 show that it is made up in part of the material used in 
 other books. Cut out of it certain considerable passages 
 to be found in A Drama in Muslin, and you cut out much 
 of the best of the book. There is the fashionable dress- 
 maker, for instance, the ear for all confidences and 
 
 125 
 
126 
 
 intimacies in both books ; there is an almost precise 
 repetition of that oddly effective scene in the novel, in 
 which the Barton tenants insist upon a reduction of their 
 rents by twenty-five per cent. ; but in Pamell and His 
 Island the spectator is the poet who, intensely wearied, 
 strives to amuse himself by recalling a sonnet of 
 Mallarme's. Another incident in this early essay is used 
 with how much finer an art in the passage in Vale where 
 our author relates his visit to the grave of that adven- 
 turous ancestor who established for a while the fortunes 
 of the Moores. . . . These returns and renewals illustrate 
 once again his frugal habit ; for Moore's is not a royal and 
 prodigal gift, and for all his supreme interest in the story 
 and ease in telling a story, there is no careless largesse 
 anywhere, but rather the anxious concentration which a 
 growing accomplishment has taught him both to increase 
 and to disguise. 
 
 It is related that Douglas Hyde, discussing with Moore 
 the possibilities of the novelist's aid in the revival of the 
 Irish language and literature, pointed to Pamell and His 
 Island as an obstacle, saying that it would go against his 
 aim, so far as the League was concerned. ' I should have 
 thought,' Moore answered, ' that the League would have 
 accepted those who are willing to help Ireland to recover 
 her language, and not to bother about my past.' Enduring 
 as well as he could the irritating little laugh of his friend, 
 he listened as Hyde wonderfully proceeded — ' The League 
 might be reconciled to your book if you were to issue it 
 with a sub-title — Pamell and His Island, or Ireland rvithout 
 Her Language '/ for wasn't it perhaps Moore's best book ? 
 — If indeed Douglas Hyde was guilty of such a notion, 
 Moore's continual revenges throughout Hail and Farewell 
 were not inexcusable. ' Mere gabble ! ' was his immediate 
 answer, for he had reason to taste to the full that intimate 
 shame which the true artist feels on a revisiting glance at 
 work which he wishes had never been written or read. 
 
127 
 
 Pamell and His Island is scarcely such a book, but although 
 I cannot pretend to combat an Irishman's view, I can see 
 clearly enough that its only interest now is for the 
 craftsman who seeks to discover a small sign of the author 
 in it, and determine what place it holds in his Pilgrim's 
 Progress from a half-real to a wholly real world. He 
 stands but precariously in a half-real world when he 
 writes — 'I am a close observer of life, and am, I think, 
 as free from prejudice as any man, but this I am bound 
 to admit — that it is impossible to over-estimate the 
 patriotism of Irishmen. . . . Their love of Ireland is, as it 
 were, a sort of constitutional vice that nothing can, that 
 nothing will be able to uproot.' — And there is no godlike 
 indifference to either sphere when he speaks of the 
 terrible Irish incubus, wondering what measures Salisbury 
 and Randolph Churchill will adopt to rid England of it, 
 and finding himself obliged to admit the existence of a 
 race-hatred. In two years from 1887 a free Parliament 
 would be given to Ireland, Irish-Americans would flock 
 back, and in a short, phantasmal seven years all traces of 
 seven hundred years of Saxon conquest would disappear. 
 What then ? — when the inevitable war with Russia began, 
 the Irish- Americans who wdlild be governing in Dublin 
 would declare independence. Unhappy is every prophet, 
 exposed to stoning even when he is wrong as well as 
 when he is right ; and it is not without reason, for the 
 prophet who prophesies falsely is only less maddening 
 than is he who prophesies truly. 
 
 But to deplore the book — and it has been deplored — is 
 to exaggerate the influence of literature upon affairs. 
 Pamell and His Island is an essay in literature, and its real 
 value is that of the marking on a wall by which a towering 
 small child's height is taken on successive birthdays. As 
 politics it need not be read, much less censured, and as 
 literature it can be remembered for the simplest uses of 
 history and portraiture. 
 
128 
 
 Moore has acknowledged freely enough how quickly 
 the Irishman in him evaporated at the contact with 
 London and Paris ; but when that disguised heavenly 
 agent beckoned him from Paris back to London, and sent 
 him, so curiously garbed, visiting Moore Hall again, the 
 Irishman began slowly to re-solidify, and childish scenes, 
 as I have said, reasserted their power while the novelist 
 was seeking after his own. I am satisfied to note this 
 in passing, and to say that in meditating or writing A 
 Mummer s Wife and A Drama in Muslin in Ireland, he was 
 unconsciously preparing for the more instinctive ex- 
 pression of The Lake and Hail and Farewell ; and if one 
 certain thing may be observed of this most fluid and 
 changeful writer, it is again and again this — that his own 
 earth was needed to renew and enhance his imaginative 
 power, even for the sake of books of so foreign a setting 
 as The Brook Kerith and Helo'ise and Ahelard. 
 
 Fondness for his native country — it needs no boldness 
 to assert the eminence of that affection in almost every 
 imaginative writer in the English tongue ; a fondness 
 sometimes restricted to the physical shape and character 
 of the land, to its hills and rivers and magical dark woods, 
 sometimes narrowly localized and enfolding a single aspect 
 or a single county, and sometimes extended to the whole 
 tradition and history of English life and character until 
 it becomes metaphysically wide but still sensitive and 
 passionate. The point is sharpened if half a dozen English 
 writers of verse or prose are contrasted with half a dozen 
 American, for the American writers betray no such 
 fondness — nor, indeed, any other national characteristic, 
 strongly marked as American characteristics appear in other 
 transactions of the human spirit ; for it seems that contact 
 with their Western earth enfeebles the free intelligence, 
 and that the excursion of Hawthorne and the exile of 
 Henry James were equally in the spirit of Christian's flight. 
 I cannot allow this dogmatism to be invalidated by the 
 
129 
 
 delightful instance of Mark Twain. On the subject of 
 nationality in art, says Moore, one can talk for a long 
 while. 
 
 Fondness for his native country may not appear to be a 
 chief mark of the genius of George Moore, and Pamell 
 and His Island may even seem the plainest contradiction of 
 such a claim. Yet it is obvious that he has, at any rate, 
 that primary affection which, as we have just observed, is 
 restricted to the physical shape and character of the land, 
 the local affection which is naturally stronger in poets 
 than in other men. He would fain be esteemed a citizen 
 of the world but, like the poet's, his heart lodges in a 
 narrower field. Even this early book is redeemed by 
 touches of that deft and tender drawing which twenty or 
 thirty years of work were to bring to delicious mastery ; 
 for among the first of countless sketches of patrimonial 
 scenes is — ' The day dreams tenderly, and in the genial 
 sunlight the pink dresses of the girls are sweet spots of 
 colour, and the wide lake, with all its reeds and islands 
 and shallowing shores, sparkles like a hand-mirror in the 
 sun.' Other passages of the same affection occur, and 
 if they have now mainly an historical or psychological 
 interest, they serve also to give a pleasanter tone to an 
 uneasy, complaining book. 
 
 The years that crept by after the publication of Pamell 
 and His Island were years of imaginative divorce from 
 Ireland ; and it was long before he awoke and realized 
 that the question of nationality was one which would 
 not for ever leave him at peace. Ave opens with that 
 question, and as he ponders he recollects his own half- 
 unconscious truism that art must be parochial in the 
 beginning to become cosmopolitan in the end. 
 
 ' I began to think of the soul which Edward 
 Martyn had told me I had lost in Paris and London, 
 and if it were true that whoever casts off tradition 
 
130 
 
 is like a tree transplanted into uncongenial soil. 
 TourgueniefF was of that opinion : " Russia can do 
 without any one of us^ but none of us can do without 
 Russia " — one of his sentimental homilies grown 
 wearisome from constant repetition, true, perhaps, 
 of Russia, but utterly untrue of Ireland. Far more 
 true would it be to say that an Irishman must fly 
 from Ireland if he would be himself. Englishmen, 
 Scotchmen, Jews, do well in Ireland — Irishmen 
 never ; even the patriot has to leave Ireland to get 
 a hearing. We must leave Ireland ; and I did well 
 to listen in Montmartre.' 
 
 The talent he brought into the world might have pro- 
 duced rarer fruit if it had been cultivated less sedulously, 
 he muses ; Ballinrobe or the Nouvelle Athenes — which ? 
 But the question is not merely a personal one ; Ireland 
 itself — was it not strange that Ireland should have pro- 
 duced so little literature ? for there is a pathos in Ireland, 
 in its people, in its landscape, and in its ruins. Pondering 
 all this and putting it by and returning to it again in an 
 exquisite mood of reverie, he adds, ^ I haven't thought of 
 Ireland for ten years, and to-night in an hour's space I 
 have dreamed Ireland from end to end. When shall I 
 think of her again ? In another ten years ; that will be 
 time enough to think of her again.' 
 
 It was less than ten years later that Ireland revisited 
 him in the persons of Edward Martyn and a stranger — 
 ^ Edward great in girth as an owl (he is nearly as neckless), 
 blinking behind his glasses, and Yeats lank as a rook, 
 a-dreara in black silhouette on the flowered wall-paper.' 
 Their business, it appeared, since it was no doorstep 
 casualty, was to found a Literary Theatre in Dublin and 
 to get Moore's support. 'Ninety-nine, urged Martyn, is 
 the beginning of the Celtic Renaissance ; and Moore 
 quickly replied that the Celt needed a renaissance badly, 
 for he had been going down in the world for the last 
 
131 
 
 two thousand years — a suggestion which his visitors may 
 very well have thought a little ungracious. Dublin, said 
 one of them, was the capital of the Celtic Renaissance ; — 
 A new Florence ? was the incredulous or scornful reply, 
 followed by the assertion that Ireland and Moore had 
 ever been strangers, without an idea in common. . . . 
 His scepticism yields to the subtle influences which steal 
 from Mr. Yeats's lips, until he becomes deliciously excited 
 at the thought of an Irish Literary Theatre and his own 
 participation in the Celtic Renaissance, and recalls the 
 first performance of the Independent Theatre, which he 
 had himself organized. With the story of that perform- 
 ance The Strike at Arlingford is involved, but it need not 
 detain us just now. Ave tells of the gradual entanglement 
 of our author in the snare of the Irish Literary Theatre ; 
 of Moore and Martyn walking together to the rehearsals 
 of The Heather Field, ' Edward's bluff and dogmatic 
 shoulders contrasting with my own very agnostic sloping 
 shoulders ; ' of the rehearsals of a nondescript company 
 towards whom Moore soon assumed a surprisingly master- 
 ful position ; and of the departure of the sifted and 
 re-sifted mummers for Dublin. * Are you not coming with 
 us .'* ' cried his oldest of friends from the moving train at 
 Euston, a question reinforced by a telegram of which the 
 words (you are invited to believe) as well as the sense ran, 
 'The sceptre of intelligence has passed from London to 
 Dublin.' Significant is it that, years after, Moore found 
 in that telegram the masculine persuasive force that bade 
 him from his study to Dublin. 
 
 * Again and again I read Edward's telegram. If it 
 be true, if art be winging her way westward ? And a 
 vision rose up before me of argosies floating up the 
 Liffey, laden with merchandise from all the ports 
 of Phoenicia, and poets singing in all the bowers of 
 Merrion Square ; and all in a new language that the 
 poets had learned, the English language having been 
 
132 
 
 discovered by them, as it had been discovered by me, 
 to be a declining language, a language that was losing 
 its verbs.' 
 
 Rousseau-like, Moore acknowledges his disappointment 
 at his unfriended entry into the new Florence ; he expected, 
 if not a deputation, at least some acquaintances to meet 
 him, but notwithstanding his heralding telegram, there 
 was nobody at the quay, nobody at the station, nobody at 
 the Shelburne. He entered that hotel as any stranger 
 from America might, unknown, unwelcomed; and it was 
 with a sinking heart that he asked vainly if an invitation, 
 a mere note even, had been left for him. Was it an 
 anticipation of that later hint from Mr. Douglas Hyde 
 that the newest of apostles might be more useful to the 
 cause in England than in Ireland ? 
 
 Happily he did not, he could not remain for long 
 an embarrassed phantom ; he was promptl}'^ immersed in 
 the grotesque difficulty of producing such a play as The 
 Countess Cathleen in the Antient Concert Rooms. His 
 part in the adventure of the Irish Literary Theatre was 
 admirable, and was freely acknowledged by Mr. Yeats 
 in the first issue of the magazine published by the theatre 
 — Samkain : — 
 
 'When Lady Gregory, Mr. Edward Martyn, and 
 myself planned the Irish Literary Theatre, we decided 
 that it should be carried on in the form we had pro- 
 jected for three years. We thought that three years 
 would show whether the country desired to take up the 
 project, and make it a part of the national life, and 
 that we, at any rate, could return to our proper work, 
 in which we did not include theatrical management, 
 at the end of that time. A little later, Mr. George 
 Moore joined us ; and, looking back now upon our 
 work, I doubt if it could have been done at all without 
 his great knowledge of the stage; and certainly if 
 the performances of the present year bring our 
 
133 
 
 adventure to a successful closCj a chief part of the 
 credit will be his.' 
 
 'I hope/ he says, in speaking of the future of the 
 Celtic Renaissance, 'I hope to get our heroic age into 
 verse, and to solve, for all Mr. Moore's unbelief, some 
 problems of the speaking of verse to musical notes.' He 
 did not want dramatic blank verse to be chanted, as people 
 understand that word, but neither did he want actors to 
 speak as prose what he had taken much trouble to write 
 as verse. Ave reveals how complete was the difference 
 between Moore's idea of production and the idea of Mr. 
 Yeats ; but nevertheless our author was not discouraged, 
 and his confession of faith (in Samhain) will give you part 
 of the reason. He was moved to join his friends because 
 he had come to know the hopelessness of all artistic effort 
 in England ; he had discovered the English decadence 
 before he discovered his own conscience, and saw nothing 
 around him save intellectual decay and moral degradation. 
 But the rest of the reason was still hidden from him when 
 The Countess Cathleen provoked denunciation and uproar. 
 Was it simply the sense of beauty } * The Countess Cathleen,' 
 he says, ' awakened in all who saw it a sense of beauty, and 
 a sense of beauty, once awakened, is immortal.' Moore's 
 loyalty to that sense had been constant. 
 
 'There has been no mt>re disinterested movement 
 than the Gaelic League. It has worked for the sake 
 of the language without hope of reward or praise ; and 
 if I were asked why I put my faith in the movement, 
 I would answer that to believe that a movement 
 distinguished by so much self-sacrifice could fail, 
 would be like believing in the failure of goodness itself. 
 
 ' Since we began our work plays have been written, 
 some in Irish and some in English, and we shall be 
 forgiven if we take a little credit for having helped 
 to awaken intellectual life in Ireland. Many will 
 think I am guilty of exaggeration when I say that the 
 
134 
 
 Irish Literary Theatre has done more to awaken 
 intellectual life in Ireland than Trinity College.' 
 
 One does not like to speak of a double self, he murmurs, 
 as he looks within and without and reverts to his visit to 
 Dublin, but he thinks it necessary to speak of his self- 
 consciousness ; for although that is a quality which he 
 shares with every human being, no two human beings are 
 alike in everything, and his self-consciousness may be 
 different from another's. His, then, has always been a 
 good friend to him, for as he walks through the streets 
 scene after scene rises up in his mind, in which he takes 
 all the parts and utters all the dialogue. * In my novels I 
 can only write tragedy, and in life play nothing but light 
 comedy, and the one explanation that occurs to me of the 
 dual personality is that I write according to my soul, and 
 act according to my appearance.' His opinion of his own 
 appearance, as that of a comic writer and comic actor, is 
 itself amusing, for that noticeable, mood-matching coun- 
 tenance, which is so attractive to watch] in its changes and 
 responses, hardly shows ' the secret of a smiling face.' 
 For these unwritten scenes almost any event is sufficient 
 impulse or pretext. 
 
 ^ Never did Nature furnish me with so rich a theme 
 as she did when Yeats and Edward came to see me in 
 Victoria Street. The subject was apparent to me 
 from the beginning, and the reason given for my 
 having accepted to act with them in the matter of 
 the Irish Literary Theatre (the temptation to have a 
 finger in every literary pie) has to be supplemented. 
 There was another, and a greater temptation — the 
 desire to secure a good part in the comedy which 
 I foresaw, and which had for the last three weeks 
 unrolled itself, scene after scene, exceeding any 
 imagination of mine. Who could have invented 
 the extraordinary rehearsals. Miss Vernon and her 
 psaltery? Or the incident of Yeats's annunciation 
 
135 
 
 that Edward had consulted a theologian in London ? 
 My anger was not assumed : Yeats told me he never 
 saw a man so angry ; how could it be otherwise, 
 ready as I am always to shed the last drop of my 
 blood to defend art ? Yet the spectacle of Edward 
 and the theologian heresy-hunting through the pages 
 of Yeats's play was behind my anger always, an 
 irresistible comicality that I should be able to enjoy 
 some day. And then the telegram saying that the 
 sceptre of intelligence had passed from London to 
 Dublin. Who could have invented it ? ' 
 
 Yes, art is outfaced in such an exquisite disarray of 
 possibilities as these incidents present, the whole forming 
 a kind of first act in which our Sterne-like author was 
 privileged to be both actor and audience. The second act 
 of The Irish Literary Comedy began to unfold itself in a 
 scene between Moore and Mr. Yeats, the theme being the 
 ecclesiastical opposition to The Countess Cathleen, developed 
 inconsequently in succeeding pages amid interruptions and 
 diversions, and charming irrelevancies such as a conversa- 
 tion with Gill, and Gill's scheme for a kind of Dublin 
 Nouvelle Athenes. 
 
 A further note on the call to Ireland is given in the 
 speech which Moore delivered at a dinner to the Irish 
 Literary Theatre ; for although he avows that he is the 
 only living Irishman who cannot speak for ten minutes, he 
 is able to read a speech and to smile at the event. It is 
 an amusing, reminiscent speech, ending with the phrase, 
 ' Twenty years hence this week in Ireland will be looked 
 back upon with reverence.' Alas! and twenty years have 
 gone. 
 
 The story of Mr. Edward Martyn's play. The Tale of a 
 Town, as Moore relates it, forms the third act in The Irish 
 Literary Comedy. A shadow used to come into the play- 
 wright's face at the thought of his responsibility in writing 
 
136 
 
 The Tale of a Totvn, for heresies frightened him ; and 
 when Moore read the whole five acts and concluded it 
 was a worse play than The Heather Field, he conceived it 
 his duty to write to dear Edward, saying that not one of 
 the five acts could interest any possible audience, Irish or 
 English or Esquimaux. Beautiful is a durable friendship, 
 founded in boyhood and surviving the rude, imperious 
 shock of aesthetic candour; and no friendship is more 
 wonderful than this between George Moore and Mr. 
 Edward Martyn. . . . Discussion of the play was reserved 
 until the friends journeyed to Bayreuth, but discussion 
 anywhere is difficult when one party is silent and allows 
 but dim glimpses of his reproachful soul. The pity which 
 had been gathering in our novelist's breast melted away 
 at the thought that the dramatist was but an amateur 
 after all ; and then again his natural kindness revived on 
 hearing that his criticism had really poisoned his friend's 
 recent tour with a party of archaeologists. ' You're a very 
 good critic,' repeated Martyn again and again, as Moore 
 tapped and tapped his sharp points in ; proving obstinate 
 when alterations were offered, because they were not his 
 own. ' The amateur always puts himself before his work 
 . . . whereas the artist is interested in the thing itself, 
 and will accept readily a suggestion from anyone, if he 
 thinks that it will be to the advantage of the work to do 
 so. Je pj'ends mon bien ou Je le trouve. . . . Anybody who 
 can improve a sentence of mine by the omission of a 
 comma or by the placing of a comma is looked upon as 
 my dearest friend.' — Perfect and austere passion of the 
 artist ! How imperfect is Mr. Martyn's judgment, and not 
 only in the matter of his play, is sharply discovered in a 
 story of his mistaking a window exactly six years old for a 
 thirteenth-century window, a story told not to display his 
 ignorance but his vagueness — Mn order to show Edward 
 when the fog descends upon him. His comprehension is 
 never the same. . . . He is like Ireland, the country he 
 
137 
 
 came from : sometimes a muddling fog, sometimes a 
 delicious mist with a ray of light striking through.* 
 
 The third act develops but slowly, the subject emerging 
 in the arrival of the friends at Bayreuth, when Moore asked 
 dear Edward about the revision, and for reply received 
 the manuscript with hardly a word in propitiation of 
 doom. A seance de collaboration would have passed the 
 morning nicely, but Mr. Martyn could not collaborate 
 any more than the sheep with the butcher. His play 
 needed revision, and revision was left to Moore, who 
 not infrequently carried the manuscript away and forgot 
 it in music, or in walks in the shady avenues of the 
 town, or in the Zoological Gardens, where the finest of 
 lions proved more beguiling. ' He seemed as lonely as 
 myself,' says our author, 'and I often imagined us two 
 together, side by side. The Tale of a Town in my left 
 hand, reading it aloud, while with the right I combed 
 his great mane for him. Which would he resent, the 
 reading or the combing ? ' — And so from Bayreuth home- 
 ward, until the friends parted with the necessary 
 alterations still unachieved, for at the mention of altera- 
 tions Mr. Martyn's face clouded ; and when the discussion 
 was perilously reopened at Tillyra, ' Leave me my play ! ' 
 he cried, adding that he could not act otherwise, for Moore 
 was giving the play a different colour. Moore thereupon 
 altered it himself, and then the opinion of Mr. Yeats 
 upon the changes was sought. Pity, or a resolve to be 
 gentler than Mr. Yeats, tempted Moore to say that he 
 could see no reason why the play should not be performed ; 
 but conscience forbade the lie. Hence The Tale of a 
 Town by Edward Martyn became The Beiiding of the 
 Bough by George Moore, for the original author refused 
 to have anything to do with the later version and 
 would not allow his name to be used. There was nothing 
 for it, then, says Moore, with meek remorse, but to sign 
 a work that was not his own ; — ' I, too, am sacrificing 
 
138 
 
 to Cathleen ni Houlihan ; one sacrifice brings many.' And 
 with that smile the comedy of the Irish Literary Theatre, 
 as Moore conceives it, may be said to end. 
 
 It seems that The Bending of the Bough was written or 
 finished not in Ireland, after all, but in London, a fact 
 which is made the occasion of one of many sudden 
 transitions in the cunning retrospect of Hail and Farewell. 
 Into the simple eddies of dramatic composition a great 
 stone was cast. 'It seemed an exquisite joke to voice 
 Ireland's woes, until one day I stopped in Ebury Street, 
 abashed; for it was not a victory for our soldiers that I 
 desired to read in the paper just bought from the boy who 
 had rushed past me, yelling. News from the Front, but 
 one for the Boers. The war was forgotten, and I walked 
 on slowly, frightened lest this sudden and inexplicable 
 movement of soul should be something more than a merely 
 accidental vacillation. It may be no more, and it may be 
 that I am changing.' When a great stone is cast into such 
 a quiet and such a secret pool, the violence of the move- 
 ment is almost startling to those looking on ; and in truth 
 this sudden shock of external upon internal, of the crude 
 active upon the subtle quiescent, caused or disclosed a 
 change in our author of which he was morbidly conscious, 
 asking his friends if it had not touched his countenance. 
 Was there indeed something in the external world which 
 had for him the hitherto unapproached power of an 
 aesthetic problem ? ' The morning paper was picked up 
 from the hearthrug, and the news of the capture of 
 our troops read again and again, the same thrill of joy 
 coming into my heart. The Englishman that was in me 
 (he that wrote Esther Waters) had been overtaken and 
 captured by the Irishman.' 
 
 Nothing more lucid has been said of George Moore 
 than this that he has said of himself. Despair of art 
 drove him to Ireland, Ireland taught him the value of 
 
139 
 
 freedom in South Africa, and South Africa in turn taught 
 him how much he owed to Ireland. The dramatic faculty, 
 and even the more simple and candid narrative gift, have 
 their several seductions ; and it is hard for such an 
 inward-gazing writer as Moore to refrain from inventing 
 experiences which will justify his literary expression of 
 them. A glance at his incessant dramatizing habit 
 suggests that since his own delight in a sometime passion 
 for a free Boer State is so transparent, it may have been 
 quickened only when it became necessary for his narrative. 
 But such a doubt is unfair, and he is as near to the truth 
 as any man can step in writing of himself, when he records 
 that out of the wreck and rubble of his former self a new 
 self had arisen ; he had learned that ideas are as necessary 
 to us as our skins. But sitting like one flayed, he wondered 
 what new ideas would clothe him again, and into what 
 new life he was being led. When he remembers his 
 former self, he hates it as much as he hates England ; 
 but we know that although he is a good hater, the inward 
 discord which is both hell and heaven has seldom fretted 
 the deeps of his being. His casual hatred does not 
 preclude enjoyment, for he took pleasure in the midst 
 of his sorrow — a grim pleasure, truly, as he admits — in 
 calling on his friends and watching their faces while he 
 assured them that the recall of the English troops in 
 South Africa would be the wisest thing that could be 
 done. ' Love of cruelty is inveterate in the human being ! ' 
 But human beings are complicated, and the invisible 
 telegraphy of affections and ideas flies over many wires, 
 or is broken, jangled and lost ; for all that cruelty, nothing 
 but the war interested him, the obsession becoming more 
 terrible daily and the surrender of his sanity more 
 imminent. A shameful materialism revolted him, the 
 revolt being aggravated — and his eyes clear again in 
 noting this — by memories of his former love of England ; 
 and musing upon England, with all that was once sweet 
 
140 
 
 turned sour, his thoughts lapse characteristically into a 
 meditation upon the aesthetic ignobility of the English, 
 until he wonders whether even Shelley, whose poetry 
 he loves more than anything else in the world, was free 
 from the taint of England. Unuttered but implicit in all 
 his impeachment and complaint is the thought — Must 
 he again leave England, and for longer than before, and 
 seek in Ireland for redemption from moral degradation and 
 aesthetic futility? Revisiting the familiar Sussex Downs 
 he found no more than an uneasy anodyne, and after a 
 while the discontent with England waxed sharp again, 
 until even the face of the country wearied him as he 
 looked along the hills, or at night saw shining garlands 
 hung between the coast towns. — For there is no country 
 in England, even the hills are enriched with lights. His 
 thoughts turned to the neighbourhood of Moore Hall, 
 the dim waste about Lough Carra, to other places and 
 other times ; for an idea had come into his life, without 
 wishing and without warning, and, although repulsed, had 
 taken possession of him and made him hate all that he 
 had loved. 
 
 But it was something far more particular and definite 
 that forced him back to Ireland, for the Irish Literary 
 Theatre was taking three fresh plays to Dublin, including 
 that sad monument of another's magnanimity. The Bending 
 of the Bough. 
 
 His immediate task was the reading of a paper on the 
 literary necessity of small languages, asserting opinions 
 that are merely intellectual opinions, invented, he says 
 smiling, to justifyfthe existence of the Gaelic League. 
 Candour again persuades him to write that some Gaelic 
 Leaguers who heard him were cynical, for they had not 
 forgotten or forgiven Pamell and His Island ; nay, it was 
 whispered that he had returned to Ireland to write about 
 the country and its ideas, and would afterwards make fun 
 of them if it suited him to do so. . . . Dangerous is it to 
 
141 
 
 suggest revenges to repulsed genius ; and often must the 
 cynics have deplored their prophecies. Some months 
 later, when the cloud cast by this minor comedy over his 
 belief in the Celtic Renaissance had dissolved, another 
 theme was developed, presenting another occasion of 
 escape from England — the proposal that Moore should 
 write, in conjunction with Mr. Yeats, Diarmuid and Grania. 
 The scene of this rare collaboration, this impossible con- 
 junction, was fixed at Coole, already (if the phrase be not 
 impertinent) a kind of twilight nursing home for the Irish 
 Literary Theatre ; for there had plays been brought forth 
 in the ardour of the cause. ' In years to come Coole will 
 be historic, later still, it will be legendary, a sort of 
 Minstrelburg, the home of the Bell Branch Singers. . . . 
 We shall all become folk-lore in time to come, Finns and 
 Diarmuids and Usheens, every one of us.' 
 
 What collaboration was possible ? I do not propose to 
 insert here a character of Mr. Yeats, for a whole book 
 would be wanted. Who doubts his genius, his yet more 
 eminent skill in the craft of words, by which even faint 
 thoughts and fading imaginations may be dressed in 
 beauty } Extravagances have been uttered in his honour, 
 but who does not excuse them by saying, He is a 
 delightful artist } The most froward of critics would do 
 no more than hint a fault and disguise an uncertain dis- 
 like ; and very few would listen. Mr. Yeats has this in 
 common with greater writers — that his genius is proven by 
 its inconstancy. Talent is constant, and the mere craft 
 of language may be unvarying; but Mr. Yeats's gift is 
 uncertain and incalculable, sometimes abased to a mere 
 decadence, as in the lyrics upon a certain lady who was 
 dying :— 
 
 ' Propped upon pillows, rouge on the pallor of her face. 
 She would not have us sad because she is lying there. 
 And when she meets our gaze her eyes are laughter lit. 
 Her speech a wicked tale that we may vie with her. 
 
142 
 
 Matching our broken-hearted wit against her wit. 
 Thinking of Saints and of Petronius Arbiter ' 
 
 sometimes lifting upon stronger wings and sounding the 
 purer music of how many lyrics of his earlier and later 
 periods alike. Nor in verse alone has his genius shone 
 brightly, for there are certain essays and that too-brief 
 fragment of autobiography. Reveries Over Childhood and 
 Youth, His genius is truly individual and lonely in its 
 finest exercise, owing little or nothing to school or 
 influence ; only his weaker writings may be assigned to 
 the influence of others. But I think that if we could not 
 have Mr. Yeats' s work without having the Irish Literary 
 Theatre — the largest of concessions to the improbable — 
 the Irish Literary Theatre would yet have been justified 
 abundantly. Nor may we forget the influence which Mr. 
 Yeats in turn exercised on his friend, who now, for all his 
 asperities, freely admits his debt ; for he never shrinks 
 from acknowledging what he owes to others who have 
 helped him to write a little better. — He was an excellent 
 schoolmaster for me, he will say of Mr. Yeats. 
 
 But the conjunction of genius with genius is perilous, 
 and what collaboration was possible between Moore and Mr. 
 Yeats ^ Collaboration ? — ' Feeling like a swordsman that 
 meets for the first time a redoubtable rival, I reminded 
 Yeats that in his last letter he had said we must decide in 
 what language the play should be written — not whether it 
 should be written in English or in Irish (neither of us 
 knew Irish), but in what style.' But Mr. Yeats also was a 
 swordsman and too wise to seek a bubble reputation. Of 
 what good will your dialogue be to me, he retorted, if it is 
 written in the language of Esther Waters ? Words followed 
 upon the use of dialogue. Moore admits his own regret 
 that he should have suggested to his rival so hazardous an 
 experiment as a peasant Grania ? We're writing an heroic 
 play, he cried, and dialogue would render heroes farcical, 
 
143 
 
 for folk is always farce and it is not (he subtly muses, I 
 presume, long after this reconstructed duel took place) — 
 it is not until the language has been strained through 
 many brilliant minds that tragedy can be written in it. 
 Surely the play had better be written in the language ot 
 the Bible. 
 
 And once again, what collaboration was possible, since 
 Moore argued that they would have to begin by writing a 
 dictionary of the words that may not be used and the 
 ideas that may not be introduced ? Every writer has his 
 own catalogue of inhibited words, his own rhythm, his 
 own voice, his own ear; and working with another the 
 most that can be looked for is an antiphonal concord. But 
 the inhibitions proposed for joint observance were not 
 limited to ideas and words, for Moore protests against the 
 poet's wish that he should not waste time by writing 
 descriptions of Nature. — Is it not amusing, for who more 
 winningly than Moore can write descriptions of Nature ? 
 and to forfeit that exercise was a hardy request. Primitive 
 man, Mr. Yeats had said, did not look at trees for beauty 
 but for use, but Moore contends that it is safer to assume 
 that primitive man thought and felt much as we do ; and 
 again the argument turned upon the virtues of dialect. 
 'But, Yeats, a play cannot be written in dialect, 
 nor do I think it can be written by turning common 
 phrases which rise up into the mind into uncommon 
 phrases ; * and he adds a sigh, for it seemed he had come 
 to Coole upon a fruitless errand — that he would never be 
 able to write Diarmuid and Grania in collaboration with 
 Mr. Yeats. 
 
 Many pleasant hours, nevertheless, passed in quarrelling 
 as to how the play should be written. Lady Gregory, 
 Moore remembers, coming to their help with a suggestion 
 that one should write the play and the other go over it ; 
 while they were together they should confine themselves 
 
144 
 
 to the construction of the play. To this important aspect 
 Mr. Yeats contributed his theories, saying that the first 
 act of every good play is horizontal, the second perpendi- 
 cular, while the third is circular, being a return to the first 
 theme. There, he exclaimed, as he recounted the story of 
 the first act — there we have the horizontal ; you see how it 
 extends from right to left. But Moore, who is a man of 
 letters rather than an aesthetician, wondered if it did not 
 extend from left to right ; and when the second act was 
 likewise explained and termed perpendicular, it became 
 necessary for Lady Gregory to beseech him to be calm. 
 No comedy conceived by the novelist alone or by the poet 
 alone might be half so perfect as the comedy issuing from 
 their fond and vain co-operation; Sterne himself hardly 
 created a situation more humorous. A desperate suggestion 
 that Moore should write the play in French was seized on 
 by the others, resulting in a midnight proposal that his 
 French text should be translated into the English of Lady 
 Gregory, the English translated into Irish, and the Irish 
 re-translated into English — for Mr. Yeats to put style upon 
 it. Strange are the innocencies of genius, stranger is the 
 fact that Moore should have left England to do his part 
 by writing the French text. Hail and Farewell contains a 
 piece of his French dialogue, and his own comment that 
 a writer can think, but not think profoundly, in a foreign 
 language. Only by printing a specimen of this dialogue 
 could he hope to convince anybody that two such literary 
 lunatics as Mr. Yeats and himself existed contemporaneously 
 in Ireland. What was all this nonsense that kept on 
 drumming in his head about the Irish language and Anglo- 
 Irish } Vexed and humiliated, he suddenly left France 
 and returned to England. As for Mr. Yeats, he announced 
 Diarmuid and Grania as a prose play in three acts by 
 Moore and himself, founded on that most famous of all 
 Irish stories, the story of the lovers whose beds were the 
 cromlechs. He believed there was nothing in it to offend 
 
145 
 
 anybody, but made no promises. ' We thought our plays 
 inoffensive last year and the year before, but we were 
 accused the one year of sedition, and the other of heresy. 
 We await the next accusation with a cheerful curiosity.' 
 When the Irish Literary Theatre wound up its three years 
 of experience with the production of this strangely 
 begotten play, he recorded the large audiences which it 
 drew, but acknowledged that it was a good deal blamed by 
 those who knew only the modern text of the legend ; the 
 version used in Diarmuid and Grania being fully justified 
 by Irish and Scottish folk-lore and certain early Irish 
 texts. . . . Extravagant as the whole episode appears, I 
 wonder if it might not have been yet more amusing had 
 Mr. Yeats followed this relation with his own. 
 
 Moore's unpremeditated return to London (as we are to 
 presume it to have been) was really a return like that 
 of a wanderer to the fold; for at once the noise of the 
 South African War reached him again, and his thoughts 
 were resolved into a prayer for the humiliation of the 
 oppressors of that distant southern Eire — a prayer not very 
 likely to be answered, and yet answered. Far off now is 
 the struggle of De Wet. It seems that while it was drawing 
 near to an end, Moore received letters telling him that 
 quarter would not be given if a token of surrender were 
 raised. Too horrible ! he cried, and tried to publish the 
 plot ; but London newspapers refused. Only in Ireland, 
 then, was there any sense of right, and so he hastened to 
 Dublin, dictated the story to the editor of the Freemaris 
 Journal, and at length drew from the military authorities 
 a repudiation of the 'plot.* 
 
 One virtue of Moore's great romantic autobiography is 
 that it displays the surface as well as discovers the depths 
 of his mind; and he has not scrupled to attribute to 
 himself a pettiness which makes his righteousness appear 
 merely self-righteousness. He believed himself, he says. 
 
146 
 
 to be God's instrument for saving an honest Protestant 
 people from the bad designs of a Jew and a nail-maker. 
 The dramatic instinct, you will say, had not decayed ; 
 Ireland's apostle had become the Boer's saviour, and he 
 saw himself as protagonist in a spiritual war. Hence his 
 mind was prepared like St. Paul's on that journey which 
 was so strongly to impress the author of The Brook Kerith. 
 As he walked towards Chelsea it seemed that a presence 
 followed him ; a thin sensation at first, but deepening 
 every moment until he dared not look behind lest he 
 should see something which was not of this world. In a 
 devout coUectedness he heard an external voice behind 
 him saying distinctly, Go to Ireland ! but when he looked 
 there was no one near. And again the voice sounded as 
 he walked on. It is the third instance of the echo-augury 
 in his reconstructed life, but the first in which the call 
 was moral and not aesthetic. Was it for that reason that 
 he questioned the voice ? Hard it seemed to abandon his 
 project of going to live in what he thought was his own 
 country, France ; but the command was now repeated. 
 Go to Ireland I Go to Ireland ! the voice speaking within 
 five or six inches of his ear, and so distinctly that his hand 
 was stretched out to the speaker. A few weeks later, 
 being still disobedient to the heavenly charge, the 
 ' presence * seemed to fill his room and overpower him ; as 
 he strove to resist, it forced him to his knees and he could 
 not help praying. Doubt was no longer possible, he had 
 been summoned to Ireland. 
 
 Under Providence, then, De Wet and Kitchener and 
 Chamberlain had conspired for the sake not of South 
 Africa but of Ireland ; their strife, blind and uninformed, 
 had resulted in the appointment of a Celtic Messiah ; they 
 were the prime authors — if in this dark, mysterious world 
 any can be called prime authors — of Hail and Farewell, 
 a book not to be written until years had elapsed, for the 
 art of writing it was not yet discovered. The stars in 
 
147 
 
 their courses never poured stranger influence upon the 
 wandering heaps that flow between the shores of men, 
 than at the beginning of the twentieth century, when the 
 conquest of a people was needed to send a writer to 
 Ireland to beget a masterpiece of imaginative art. Nor 
 have they often been kinder to letters than when they 
 permitted that echo-augury to be repeated, so providing 
 a full and perfect close to the first volume of this 
 autobiography. 
 
 His tardy response to the bidding was complete and 
 uncalculating — he himself tells of the difficulties he 
 became involved in before he was able to disappear 
 from London and emerge like a new- washed orb from the 
 Irish Sea; and the Irish difficulties seemed as great as 
 the English, for he had almost as much trouble in finding 
 a new habitation as in leaving the old one. The search 
 is made the occasion of a study of A. E., that kindly, 
 whimsical, Moorish creation, about whom our author loves 
 to group his fancies, speaking of him now as a child speaks 
 of his father, now as a father of a loved child, and always 
 with that affection which we bestow upon slightly diminu- 
 tive and precious things. To A. E. he confides his 
 enthusiasms and disappointments : — Nobody wanted him 
 — why had he come to Dublin? He had hoped for a 
 welcome, without bonfires and banners, but not without 
 some appreciation of his sacrifice ; and once again his hope 
 was rain. 
 
 What was that sacrifice ? He tells the story of Whistler 
 saying to him, years before — I suppose nothing matters 
 to you but your writing. ^ His words went to the bottom 
 of my soul, frightening me; and I have asked myself, 
 again and again, if I were capable of sacrificing brother, 
 sister, mother, fortune, friend, for a work of art. . . . One 
 is near madness when nothing really matters but one's 
 work.* It was a lucid madness, and a lucid madness it 
 
148 
 
 has remained ; and if we accept that term madness, we 
 must always emphasize the qualification. He thought the 
 Boer War disproved Whistler's charge, but Hail and Fare- 
 well shows the height and the depth, the length and the 
 breadth of his renunciation, and how secure the love of 
 letters remained, — Why had he come to Ireland ? The 
 lack of welcome disturbed his faith, for if England was 
 hateful, Ireland was somewhat repugnant. 
 
 Again and again he turns to A. E., to the A. E. of his 
 quick invention, often to share his joys, often to banish 
 his doubts, but most often to answer his arguments. 
 * When he left me, a certain mental sweetness seemed to 
 have gone out of the air.' A. E. tempted him to recount 
 the strange circumstances of his call to Ireland, and 
 affirmed that the gods that inspired Moore's return to 
 Ireland were not Asiatic ; and talking of local gods and of 
 the Druids, A. E. heard his friend proposing that they 
 should go forth together and preach the Danaan divinities 
 — A. E. as Paul, and himself as Luke to take down Paul's 
 words. ' It would be your own thoughts, my dear Moore, 
 that you would be reporting, not mine,' was the acute 
 reply. But there is no unkindness in Moore's long, 
 lingering regard of A. E. ; indeed the cunning elaboration 
 that forms the portrait of his friend presents the subject 
 much as a ' figure in a carpet.' More truly yet might it 
 be said that in Moore's eyes A. E. is like the prized carpet, 
 as real as the Aubusson, as finely proportioned, as subtly 
 hued, and almost as fondly gazed upon by the eyes of 
 ownership. There is something wonderful in the art that 
 can charge a portrait with such opposites — with invention 
 and verisimilitude, romance and literality, making it at 
 once an image of the subject and a reflection of the artist. 
 It is A. E. who listens, or is presumed to listen, to Moore's 
 speculation upon the Druids and the Renaissance, A. E. 
 who answers concerning everything, saying at one moment. 
 Admire the bridge without troubling yourself as to what 
 
149 
 
 its fate will be when you are gone ; and at another. Men 
 knew great truths thousands of years ago, and it seems 
 to me that these truths are returning. . . . Moore does 
 not invent out of nothing ; he develops, and brings his 
 oaks from acorns, his A. E. from what his eye has seen, 
 his ear heard, and his unresting imagination rained its 
 seasons upon. In his memories of A. E., he says, there 
 must be so much of himself, that he hesitates to attribute 
 some of these reminiscent phrases to his friend ; such as, 
 for example, ' The folk-tales of Connaught have ever lain 
 nearer to the hearts of the people than those of Galilee.' 
 A. E., it is recorded, floating as easily above lowlier minds 
 as did Coleridge when Hazlitt heard him (he, too, 
 entranced), finished a wonderful evening by drawing a 
 portrait of Moore — ' clearly the work of one who has been 
 with the Gods, for in it my hair is hyacin thine, and my 
 eyes are full of holy light.' 
 
 It may be, he admits, that he is caricaturing A. E., as he 
 proceeds to sharpen the outline and deepen the shadows : 
 but A. E. remains the one of all his friends whose spirit 
 burns with the purest and most constant energy, giving 
 the simplest of all light amid the confusions which un- 
 happily make up — I had almost said compose — national 
 aspirations in Ireland. Moore does net laugh at A. E., he 
 does not measure or question him, but accepts and admires. 
 Scruples of conscience are his speciality, he admits with an 
 epicurean smile ; but he does not look for them in that 
 clear and unhaunted nature. He finds them in Gill, who 
 seems to have been flashed into visibility in order to give 
 substance to the mistrust which so soon supplanted the 
 first enthusiasm for Cathleen ni Houlihan. Should Gill 
 accept office under the English Government ? ' Gill 
 should have consulted me, for he would have gotten from 
 me the advice that would have been agreeable to him ; * 
 but men do not consult their friends when their deter- 
 mination is to walk the thorny path. I need not remind 
 
150 
 
 the reader that Gill is the target for those swift and sharp 
 arrows which Moore shoots with faultless accuracy, if not 
 always with perfect coolness. He delights in displaying 
 in Gill the follies and vanities of human nature — follies 
 and vanities so numerous, so unmercifully displayed, that 
 you wonder that a single head can contain them all, yet 
 never wonder long enough to question the consistency ot 
 the imaginary portrait. What was it, do you ask, that 
 provoked this subtle constructive surgery ? I cannot tell 
 — a physical antipathy, perhaps, the first sight of the 
 beard which brushes so many pages of Hail and Farewell. 
 I will not plunge into the history of the Irish Renaissance, 
 and only ask myself whether it is not obscurely necessary 
 that a Renaissance bring with it offences of one kind and 
 another ; in one country offences against morals, in another 
 offences against manners. My concern is the simple one 
 of tracing the character, not of A. E. or Gill, but of the 
 artist who has composed their effigies, and of the influence 
 upon him of long acquaintance with the particular stars 
 of that now darkened firmament. Hail and Farewell is 
 remarkable in its devotion to an antipathy. It was not 
 published until some time after Moore's sojourn in Ireland 
 was over, and to few men is it given to nurse either their 
 admiration or their contempt with such perfect success as 
 he achieves. Admiration cools, gods are dethroned or 
 diminished in glory, and the contempt which we feel one 
 year fades to indifference the next ; but Moore's admiration 
 of A. E. and his manifest affection for Edward Martyn do 
 not perceptibly dwindle, nor does time rob him of his con- 
 tempt for others. Men are sometimes ashamed of an 
 overweighted dislike ; but Moore has avowed his desire 
 not to conceal or be ashamed of anything, no, not even of 
 the touch of inhumanity which gives a final salience to his 
 amazing inventions. 
 
 This portrait of Gill, to take the chief instance, is a 
 portrait of one Irishman by another, and the artist has 
 
151 
 
 genius to speed him. Gill, too, gives him opportunities, 
 which had to be found somewhere, of reflections upon 
 the personalities which made the Celtic Renaissance 
 conspicuous and pathetic ; the opportunity, for instance, 
 of saying that the Celt is so ineffectual because his 
 dreams go one way and his actions go another. Every 
 race produces more Gills than Davitts; and when, he 
 proceeds, in 1901 he went to live in Ireland, he found 
 Gill the centre of the Irish Literary and Agricultural 
 Party, and looked on as the one man who could weather 
 the political peril. * A cheerful, superficial nature ! ' Some 
 men, he says, in speaking of Gill, spend their lives 
 watching bees or ants, noting down the habits of these 
 insects ; his own pleasure is to watch the human mind, 
 noting how unselfish instincts rise to the surface and sink 
 back again ; and so he watches this kindly-tempered man 
 who had floated down the tide of casual ideas into the 
 harbour of thirteen hundred a year. Moore sees himself 
 as sacrificed for Cathleen ni Houlihan, again and again 
 playing with that attractive theme; and Gill had the 
 satisfaction, perhaps more permanent and also more per- 
 plexing, of seeing himself as a sacrifice to Moore's art. 
 But it was an involuntary sacrifice, since few who are 
 not men of genius can bear to look ridiculous. 
 
 Gentle enough, however, is the earlier treatment of 
 Gill in comparison with that chapter of Vale in which 
 Gill and Plunkett are joined in martyrdom for the pur- 
 poses of this matchless entomologist. Moore complains 
 that others have complained that instead of creating such 
 characters as Esther Waters and Dick Lennox, he has 
 wasted himself in mere portrait-painting of his friends ; 
 and he answers that we all use models, and that he 
 used models for Esther Waters and Dick Lennox. The 
 models are presented for intelligent study, and the artist 
 must use them ; and has not Flaubert presented models 
 for Moore's use ? When he wrote Bouvard and Pecuchet 
 
152 
 
 he thought he was creating, but he was really giving new 
 names to Nature's own creations, Plunkett and Gill. 
 
 Our novelist, it seems, was interested in a Co-operative 
 Egg Society, which his brother had prompted Plunkett to 
 establish, and he wanted to discuss the co-operative egg 
 when he met Plunkett ; finding, however, that nothing 
 bored him so much as detail and that, like every other 
 Irishman, he loved dreaming. But the dreams of Plun- 
 kett and Gill were influential, for a substantial Govern- 
 ment grant was obtained, in order to found a Department 
 of Agriculture and Art in Ireland ; and it is at this point 
 that the dreamers are invested with the mask of Flaubert's 
 types. — It is thirty years, says Moore, since he read Bou- 
 vard and Pecuchet, but his unscrupling study of his friends 
 revives his memory of that masterpiece, and he proceeds 
 with the tenderness of Fabre towards a spider, or a spider 
 towards two flies, in the task of re-identifying or re-in- 
 carnating the French writer's conception. . . . Flaubert, 
 says our novelist, had he seen what I see, would have 
 murmured regretfully, I have been anticipated ; Plunkett 
 and Gill have transferred dreams into real life. The 
 adventure of the calf that died, the adventure of the 
 Ballina shoe factory, the Gal way oyster-beds, the piers, 
 the eggs, the cheese, and — consummation of inestimable 
 folly ! — the adventure of Asses in Ireland, all these are 
 briefly recited amid such comments as, ^ They found con- 
 solation in the thought that experimentation is the source 
 of all knowledge ' ; and ' Pecuchet hesitated, with his 
 usual instinct for compromise.' I dare not attempt to 
 select the most exquisite of all the exquisite touches of 
 ungentle mockery which make Vale unforgettable — it is 
 not for me to say unforgivable also ; even to a generation 
 that has won a great war and discovered the cost after- 
 wards, these incidents are astonishing. The justice of the 
 satire may be most properly questioned by those concerned 
 in the development of the Co-operative Society with which 
 
153 
 
 Sir Horace Plunkett has been so honourably associated. 
 But whether it is questioned or not, this chapter illustrates 
 more than any other the perfect detachment which our 
 author succeeded in cultivating until he had become all 
 eyes for others' humours and weaknesses, all ears to every 
 echo, and all ice to every little naked imp of pity. This 
 disillusionment, disharmonization, disintegration — call it 
 what you will — was a gradual process, hastened by certain 
 antipathies, retarded by obstinate affections, but slowly 
 going on until he found himself simply out of humour 
 with Ireland. The process embraced most of the men 
 he was in the habit of meeting and thinking about, and 
 the forbearance of the injured would surely have been 
 impossible had Hail and Farewell been a less perfectly 
 wrought piece of imaginative art. Generosity and a 
 love of English literature may even have persuaded 
 Dr. Hyde to pardon such a sentence as this that tells 
 of the anticipated disappearance of the Gaelic League, 
 if not the earlier sentences which it would be too cruel 
 to repeat here. 
 
 'It drifted back whence it came. Worn and 
 broken and water-logged, it drifted back to the 
 original Connemara bog-hole, to sink under the 
 brown water out of sight of the quiet evening sky, 
 unwatched, unmourned save by dear Edward, who 
 will weep a few tears, I am sure, when the last 
 bubbles arise and break.' 
 
 It was one day while he was walking with John 
 Eglinton that Moore mentioned his fancy for writing 
 a volume of short stories about Irish life, and he adds 
 for our information that his search for subjects was 
 immediately rewarded by the theme of "The Wedding 
 Gown," budded from A Mummer's Wife ; the new story 
 proving so pleasant in the eyes of a priest that it was 
 translated into Irish, and thought by the late Kuno 
 Meyer to exhale in the Irish version a folk-flavour 
 
154 
 
 wanting in the English original. Other stories followed 
 and, like the first, were printed in The New Ireland Review ; 
 but after a while the priestly censorship of subjects for 
 that Review created difficulties, and those difficulties 
 became a grief to the Irish Turgenev. Father Tom 
 and himself, he reflects, had lain side by side in har- 
 bour for a while ; but he began to feel that these stories 
 were drawing him away from Catholic Ireland. 
 
 So liberated, other stories came, incident following 
 upon incident, he recollects, with bewildering prodigality. 
 Thus the best of the stories in The Untilled Field was 
 founded upon an episode of the country, and received 
 the title ' The Wild Goose ' ; but at the moment I do not 
 wish to think of this short story as literature only, but as 
 indicating that deepening dissent from Catholicism which 
 was to hasten our author's separation from the leaders of 
 the Celtic Renaissance. He saw, through the magic case- 
 ment of this short story, how impossible it was to enjoy 
 independence of body and soul in Ireland. ^ They bring 
 their Catholicism with them wherever they go. . . . Every 
 race gets the religion it deserves.' In his half-bantering, 
 half-serious way he launches his perplexity at dear Edward, 
 fearing lest it cool before it has pierced the triple brass of 
 his friend's consistency. The decline of art was coincident 
 with the Union of the Irish Church with Rome, and it is 
 impossible to deny that Irish Catholics had written very 
 little. Father Tom had admitted that. Excited, and 
 standing as he thought on the verge of a great discovery, 
 he cries. Which is at fault — the race or Catholicism } A 
 long discussion ensues, reverting to the dawn of recorded 
 time and ending with the nineteenth century and the 
 remark. How strange that nobody should have seen before 
 that Catholicism is an intellectual desert ! — How often, 
 let me add, has it happened that one has waked in early 
 morning, with a remnant of a dream in one's head or eyes, 
 a half-formed vision ; and in that delicious ferment of the 
 
155 
 
 brain it has seemed that the greatest conceptions of the 
 imaginative world are about to be captured and confined 
 to verse or prose. The dream fades, the vision clouds, 
 excitement w^anes, and the aspect of the world is common 
 again. With such extravagant, deluding swiftness of mind 
 does Moore awake with his new opinion, excited by it as 
 the dreamer with his dreams. ' In Mayo, almost in my 
 own parish, was fought the most famous battle in Irish 
 legend ; from Mayo came Davitt, the Land League, and a 
 new discovery which will recreate Ireland. The shepherds 
 will fight hard, but the sword I found in my garden will 
 prevail against the crozier, and by degrees the parish priest 
 will pass away, like his ancestor the Druid ! * 
 
 In default of this salvation from faith it is not merely 
 an intellectual desert that he foresees, but a depopulated 
 Ireland as well, Ned Carmody's lament in 'The Wild 
 Goose ' being Moore's own lament. The impulse which 
 had borne him to Ireland had begun to shake when he 
 noticed that the nuns upon whose garden his own garden 
 in Ely Place looked were gradually absorbing the neigh- 
 bourhood ; and when, one day, in the course of an after- 
 noon walk, he counted eight monastic houses in a single 
 small district of South Dublin, he dreamed of the time 
 when all Dublin would be a convent. With eyes so 
 washed of their sometime blindness, he stared at the 
 thronging priests and seminarists, the great cathedrals 
 and comfortable presbyteries, and the newspapers with 
 their tales of a kind of blackmail levied by the Church 
 upon the landed and landless alike. There was no 
 heresy iii Ireland, and the Modernist movement won no 
 adherence ; Ireland, it seemed, was as incapable of in- 
 dependent thought as Thibet ; and paradoxically he calls 
 it an essentially unreligious country, himself being one 
 of the few Irishmen interested in religious questions. 
 The reality of his exasperation may be judged from this 
 confusion of religion with religious discussion. ... I have 
 
156 
 
 always felt like a stranger in my own country, he muses, 
 in a phrase of sore lucidity. 
 
 I have remarked that it was art that took him to France 
 and art (assisted by a h.atred of the English oppression 
 of a pious South African people) that sent him back to 
 Ireland. And it was clearly not in the interest of 
 Protestantism, then, that he hastened first to A. E. 
 (who accepted the discovery as commonplace) and next 
 to Gill, with whom he discussed all the possible reasons 
 for secession from Rome, adding his new reason — 
 literature. And with this postulate before them, Moore 
 and Gill walked the streets of the Celtic Florence, 
 darting swallow-like for Catholic gnats up and down the 
 stream of time. . . . The two whetstones of the mind 
 are sex and religious discussion, and we must keep passing 
 our intelligence up one and down the other: — and so 
 pondering he decided for good and all that he owed 
 the preservation of his intelligence to his theological 
 interests. Sex, it seemed, no longer counted as an 
 interest in the urgency of this great discovery and 
 impending divorce from the mind of his native country. 
 
 Of the sincerity of this obstinate questioning there 
 need be little doubt. He could not keep his discovery 
 to himself. From Gill he hurried to Eglinton with — 
 * My belief is that Catholic countries haven't produced 
 a book.' Somewhere in Ave he had written, ' Let us be 
 content with the theory, and refrain from collecting facts 
 to support it, for in doing so we shall come upon excep- 
 tions, and these will have to be explained away ' ; but that 
 attitude would not suit him now, and he discussed the 
 facts and exceptions untiringly and with such a concession 
 to reason as to put it precisely that ninety-five per cent, 
 of the world's literature had been produced by Pro- 
 testants and Agnostics. By literature, of course, he meant 
 literature excluding theology and mainly consisting of 
 
157 
 
 imaginative work ; and, confirmed by all that he had said 
 to Eglinton, he proceeded to Martyn, who answered the 
 Columbus of ideas with a smile — ' What, another ! I 
 thought you had come to the end of them. Your first 
 Avas the naturalistic novel, your second impressionistic 
 painting ' — and the third, retorted Moore, was Martyn's 
 plays and the Irish Renaissance, which was but a bubble. 
 Of what use is it to change the language of Ireland, since 
 Catholics cannot write ? But when his friend asked, ' What, 
 then, about your mission ? ' Moore was overwhelmed ; it 
 seemed that his life had been sacrificed for a bubble. 
 
 After Martyn, Meyer. Plant an acorn in a vase and 
 the oak must burst the vase or become dwarfed, and from 
 Meyer he obtained the support of German literature ; and 
 concluded pathetically that his life was at an end. He 
 had been led to Ireland in the hope of reviving the 
 language, for a new language was required to enwomb 
 a new literature ; but Ireland would not forego her super- 
 stitions for the sake of literature, and dogma and literature 
 were incompatible. 
 
 Justice, however — that wilful, sardonic deity — demanded 
 that a Catholic should be heard in the defence of Catholi- 
 cism ; and who better than his brother might defend it ? 
 'You don't mean to tell me that you have brought me 
 all the way from Mayo to argue with you about religion ? ' 
 Whereupon our author explained that he had come to 
 Ireland (obedient to a heavenly visitant) to help literature, 
 and if he found that dogma and literature were incom- 
 patible, he must say so. Catholics may not speculate, and 
 the greatest literature had come out of speculation on the 
 value of life. ' What I'm saying to you to-day,' he cried, 
 ' will be written to-morrow or after — I'm using you as an 
 audience.' It is an exercise that he loves; even in the 
 most simple and familiar conversations of Ebury Street 
 the charmed visitor may suspect that he is being used 
 as an audience. 
 
158 
 
 We often criticize our friend, he says, truly enough, 
 and he sitting opposite to us, Httle thinking how he is 
 being torn to pieces ; but I suppose that no one has 
 carried that practice to such perfection as George Moore. 
 * There are people of to-day, to-morrow, and yesterday ; 
 and the Colonel is much more of yesterday than of to-day.' 
 He finds his brother a subject for that somewhat icy 
 painter Velasquez, who painted the true Catholic in all 
 his portraits of Philip, never failing to catch the faded, 
 empty Catholic look. It has been Moore's fortune, and 
 ours, that, sitting opposite his friends, he has not simply 
 torn them to pieces but also put them together again — 
 making them different, perhaps, but making them certainly 
 whole; no mere incredible collection of the fortuitous, 
 but characters of coherence and animation, if not of literal 
 likeness. It has been our ill-luck, however, that none of 
 his friends has done this for Moore ; but in this pursuit 
 of an idea we may catch something of his superficial and 
 more of his profounder personality, and we are helped by 
 that wonderful dramatic candour which tells us so much 
 of his mind as well as his art. 
 
 ' The lamp burned brightly on the table, and rising 
 from the arm-chair to light a cigar, I caught sight 
 of my face and wondered at my anger against my 
 brother, a sort of incoherent, interior rumbling, 
 expressing itself in single words and fragments of 
 sentences. An evil self seemed to be stirring within 
 me ; or was it that part of our nature which lurks in 
 a distant corner of our being and sometimes breaks 
 its chain and overpowers the normal self which we 
 are pleased to regard as our true self.'* Everyone has 
 experienced the sensation of spiritual forces at war 
 within himself, but does he ever suspect that the 
 abnormal self which has come up to the surface and 
 is influencing him may be influencing him for his 
 good ; at all events, for some purpose other than the 
 generally received one — the desire to lead poor 
 human nature into temptation .'* ' 
 
159 
 
 With that keen, unrelenting gaze he watches the 
 Colonel, outward and inward man together, while he 
 develops his discovery and launches the fatal question, 
 ' Why have your sons educated by priests ? Protestantism is 
 harmless, for it leaves the mind free.' . . . Such words 
 followed, according to Moore, that further discussion was 
 impossible ; there was but the one phrase — ' It will be a 
 great grief to me if you declare yourself a Protestant.' 
 
 But the grief of one must not cause another to stumble. 
 Moore confides to A. E., or to the pages of Salve, the 
 quarrel with his brother, saying that the Colonel had 
 mentioned accidentally that his grandfather was not a 
 Catholic, and the news that there was only one generation 
 of Catholicism behind him came sweetly as the south 
 wind. He would declare himself a Protestant. But since 
 that declaration would grieve his brother, he must leave 
 Ireland as soon as the lease of his house expired. Mean- 
 while he was kept out of St. Patrick's every Sunday by 
 his promise to the Colonel, and his fretting at this restric- 
 tion was only eased by receiving an invitation to stay with 
 friends in England ; this in turn leading to his being 
 asked to read the lessons in the parish church. For 
 several weeks he read the lessons, and when he returned 
 to Ireland he had acquired a superficial but real admiration 
 of the language of the Bible, and resolved to read it 
 through from beginning to end. His discovery of the 
 Bible he kept as little to himself as his discovery of 
 paragraph and punctuation : his wonder is as instinctive 
 and communicative as a child's. Pondering upon things 
 in the Old Testament that repelled him, for his squeamish- 
 ness was very considerable, it suddenly occurred to him to 
 read the Gospels ; and straightway he became indignant 
 with the teachers of the Gospels who had so utterly 
 neglected the great literary art of the Founder of Chris- 
 tianity. I cannot at this stage enter into a discussion 
 of Moore's appreciation of the Bible, and I pass at once 
 
160 
 
 to his letter to the Archbishop in which he announced 
 that since he came to live in Ireland his thoughts had 
 been directed towards religion^ and now it appeared that 
 the purest form of Christianity was to be found in the 
 Anglican rather than in the Roman Church ; how could 
 he become a member of the Anglican Church ? Obviously 
 some special direction would be necessary for the leader 
 of the Celtic Renaissance who had just been devastated 
 with a sense of incompatibles, and obviously, too, he must 
 demand a purer and aesthetically more satisfying mode of 
 conversion than that by which others had been con- 
 strained into the ranks of orthodoxy. The common man, 
 he reminded himself, makes the same mess of pottage out 
 of religion as he does out of art. Moore's tastes in art 
 have never been common, and as for religion, have we 
 not the witness of Evelyn Innes and Sister Teresa f 
 
 Perhaps because of mere circumstance, perhaps out of 
 wisdom, perhaps out of simple perplexity, the Archbishop 
 referred our novelist to his parish priest. An icy sentence 
 was dropped by the parish priest at the first interview — 
 'It is quite possible that there is more intelligence in 
 Protestantism than in Catholicism, but we are concerned 
 with spiritual rather than with aesthetic truths.' Wrangling 
 about texts followed ; until Moore cried, / take my stand 
 upon Paul ! but a prayer said with the parish priest 
 melted all difficulties, he grew happy, and for a moment 
 did not care whether the world thought him a Protestant 
 or Catholic. 
 
 Only for a moment. A review of The Untilled Field 
 upset him by speaking of the author as himself a Catholic ; 
 And is this shame eternal ? he cried. Merely because his 
 father was a Papist must he remain one? Enraged, he 
 composed a letter to the press, declaring his formal 
 passage from the Church of Rome to the Church of 
 Ireland, and consulted A. E., not to get his opinion but 
 only to get his approval. The publication of such a letter. 
 
161 
 
 conceived in pique and brought forth in anger, was 
 unnecessary to convince us of the depth of Moore's divorce 
 from Catholicism and the Irish Renaissance ; it is used, 
 however, to mark the end of Salve and the essential com- 
 pletion also of Moore's romantic autobiography ; for Vale 
 adds little to the inward story of the ten years spent in 
 Ireland. But Vale repeats and extends what we have 
 heard already, and by mere insistence helps us to see that 
 Moore's concern with Ireland and Catholicism was not 
 idle. 
 
 * Ever since the day that I strayed into my garden 
 and it had been revealed to me as I walked therein 
 that Catholics had not written a book worth reading 
 since the Reforaiation, my belief had never faltered 
 that I was an instrument in the hands of the Gods, 
 and that, their mighty purpose was the liberation ot 
 my country from priestcraft.' 
 
 But how achieve it ? The instrument of the Gods was no 
 preacher, and the artist in him could not be suborned to 
 fashion the new gospel into play or novel, until one day 
 the form was revealed to him — it must be autobiography ! 
 Truly an unusual form for a sacred book, but a remem- 
 brance of St. Paul sufficed to overcome his hesitation ; 
 Ave was begun in the full sense of his mission ; then 
 Salve, following his memory of a long search for divinity ; 
 and after Salve the conviction came that the autobiography 
 would bring his long sojourn in Ireland to a close. For 
 would it not be in bad taste (surprisingly he asks) to 
 remain in Dublin and meet continually his models in the 
 streets — friends and lost friends, acquaintances and men 
 never more to be acquaintances } And far more per- 
 suasively — Would not exile (even self-ordained exile, as 
 we see it) give the autobiography a final distinction? 
 Never was such self-consciousness since Rousseau's, nor 
 was it ever so well justified of its children. The great 
 design was to begin in the Temple and end at Moore 
 
162 
 
 Hall ; but why revisit Moore Hall ? Yet, since one is 
 never sure of what may be seen, and since the book 
 wanted that particular conclusion and not another, and 
 since, again, the last eighty pages of Fale had to be 
 wrought into something finer than the first hundred, the 
 visit was paid and the needed effect assured. Another 
 advantage — not, I think, an uncalculated one — is that the 
 visit enables Moore to end on a pleasanter note, and so 
 diminish the sense of acerbity which might else have been 
 too plain. 
 
 But even in this visit the religious question lies sword- 
 like between the affections of the brothers. The novelist 
 recites a proposal which he made in the course of this 
 visit — that his eldest nephew should be brought up a 
 Protestant, and that recompense should be secured to 
 him in this world as well as in the next. Argument 
 ensued, and was prolonged for the rest of the visit, as it 
 is recalled in Fale; a visit of which the chief satisfaction 
 was the moment of farewell ; for he felt glad to escape 
 from a wrangle that had become unendurable. 
 
 ' He had said the night before last that we had 
 better not see each other, and though the words 
 seemed hard I could not resist their truth. It was a 
 relief to get away from him. "Catholics and Pro- 
 testants don't mix ; we are never comfortable in 
 their society. We tell them by a foolish ecstasy, a 
 
 foolishness in their faces difficult to define, but " 
 
 At that moment the guard blew his whistle, the 
 train moved up the platform, and the Colonel passed 
 out of my sight. " So this is the end of it all, and 
 there is no help for it. We never knew it before, and 
 might never have known it if I hadn't come down to 
 Mayo. It was while revisiting the scenes of our 
 youth that we discovered how hopeless is our 
 estrangement ! He thinks, no doubt, that I have 
 changed : we have both changed, and the fault is 
 neither with him nor with me." ' 
 
163 
 
 Yes, the thought seemed unendurable — but no thought 
 lasts. His mission in Ireland was over, and the time for 
 leaving was come. And whither now — Paris or London ? 
 No, it could not be Paris, for Hail and Farewell must be 
 finished, cried once more that mysterious voice out of 
 the circumambient profundity. It was precisely between 
 Mullingar and Dublin that he realized more acutely than 
 ever that this task was the cause of his being ; he had 
 been led by the hand like a little child to write it, but he 
 knew not by whom he had been led. And now it was 
 borne in upon him (again at whose bidding he knew not) 
 that a sacrifice was asked of him, and that he must leave 
 friends and native land, and even forego the briefly held 
 vision of obedient wife and extraordinary son, for the 
 sake of his book — a book of liberation. He knew the 
 book to be the turning-point in Ireland's destiny, yet 
 prayed that he might be spared the pain of writing. But 
 no man escapes his fate. Something was propelling him 
 out of Ireland. 
 
 The sublimation of common causes and effects has 
 seldom reached a greater rarity, and perhaps a less than 
 supernatural impulse would justify the renunciation so 
 loftily conceived ; indeed we have already glanced at a 
 humbler reason, without being struck with its inadequacy. 
 He had seen himself as the prophet of the Celtic 
 Renaissance, but the fire had died away, and as it died 
 the new Florence collapsed into ashes. 
 
 Yet since the faults of Hail and Farewell rankle, and 
 spring from the author's mind into which we are looking, 
 they must not be ignored. Speaking of The Faithful 
 Shepherdess, Lamb remarks that if Chloe was meant to set 
 off Clorin by contrast, Fletcher should have known that 
 such weeds by juxtaposition do not set off, but kill 
 sweet flowers. As ill-conceived a juxtaposition is that 
 which Moore has arranged for certain amorous passages in 
 
164 
 
 the third volume of his trilogy ; for between conversations 
 with Edward Martyn and the journey to Moore Hall, a 
 dozen wanton pages occur in the style of : ' You don't mind, 
 darling, if I don't see you to-night ? I prefer to tell you, 
 
 has asked me if he might come to my room ; I can't 
 
 well refuse. You don't mind ? ' It is not a stain that 
 spreads, but it is one that does not fade, and although the 
 author of Fale earns a quick pardon, the necessity for 
 pardoning something so puerile is resented ; why, you 
 ask, why cannot he respect his own art and spare this 
 schoolboy smutching ? If it be urged that you must take 
 an author as he is, and not as you would have him, the 
 answer is simple : — Moore as he essentially is does not raise 
 this offence ; he yields too readily to the tricksy spirit that 
 lives in whispers and furtive smiles and senile chuckles, a 
 spirit which is not of himself, but which he oddly fancies 
 to be a spirit of moral and intellectual liberty. Tem- 
 peramental differences, however, will determine a reader's 
 attitude in the end, and the only objection to be urged 
 here is the serious objection that such episodes as this, 
 in such a book as Hail and Farewell, signify a brief, 
 maddening failure of the artist. 
 
 The other fault is also temperamental in origin and has 
 already been noted — a fondness for the cruellest cari- 
 cature. There can be no question of George Moore's 
 devourmg zeal for art, when it involves this general 
 sacrifice of friends and acquaintances. His eye is acute, 
 his tongue merciless, his judgment cynical, and having 
 discovered his power (for it was not always apparent to 
 himself) he proceeds to a malicious employment ; yet not 
 because of deliberate malice, but because he cannot 
 abstain from the sharpest exercise of this newly-found 
 gift. He can admire his victims, but they are his 
 victims none the less, and he admires nothing so much 
 as his own ingenuity when he looks again and again 
 at the palpitating shapes that once were theirs. When 
 
165 
 
 he wrote Confessions oj a Young Man it was himself 
 that he 
 
 * Carved with figures strange and sweet 
 All made out of the carver's brain ; ' 
 
 not content to show himself as he was (a task inadequately 
 fascinating), but rather as he wished to appear ; but when 
 his descendant practised with a defter hand upon others, 
 he forgot that the same freedom with his material might 
 hardly be granted, and repeated the inventive process 
 with undisguised ardour. Once again he carved strange 
 figures, figures without sweetness, but figures made out of 
 the carver's brain, as freakish in his craft as Puck, as 
 perverse as Caliban. Never have the privileges of friend- 
 ship and the accidents of acquaintance been more richly 
 misused ; the fretful porcupine has no more painful quill 
 than that of the author of Hail and Farewell. Small 
 consolation is it to the fantastically twitching corpses that 
 Moore has displayed his own character with at least equal 
 clearness, and breathed a morose or amused Non dolet. 
 His intemperate candour is, I think, another expression 
 of that unscrupulous licence of speech of which we are so 
 often reminded in the present study. He will say things 
 in his own name, as of himself, and he will say things of 
 others, which most men would shrink from saying out 
 of mere prudence or generosity; and it is the same 
 impersonal wantonness that impels him, the same fear of 
 being ashamed or seeming ashamed of any thought or 
 imagination which comes into his head. Hail and Farewell 
 is romantic biography as well as romantic autobiography, 
 and when all is said, in praise and in excuse, it remains 
 equally admirable and inexcusable. But time will 
 diminish the offence without dulling the beauty, and the 
 trilogy will assuredly remain a delight long after most of 
 the victims of it are forgotten. 
 
 What was his model .'* A remembrance of Sterne, of 
 
166 
 
 Heine's Florentine Nights, of the wonderful third book of 
 Montaigne's Essays, of his admired Landor? Perhaps 
 some or all of these, moving beneath the rippling 
 surface of his mind, suggested the form ; but in truth it is 
 original — a wandering narrative, now clouded, now clear, 
 and anon enbowed by such strange light as rejoices the 
 mind in looking seaward or landward from Howth Head. 
 
 In a preface to the revised text of The Lake, Moore has 
 explained the origin of the book and also the origin of 
 The Untilled Field; but as we have already glanced at 
 these, I need only say that the two books should be read 
 as one, being separated for the mysterious purposes of the 
 publisher. The author's own words upon this matter may 
 be cited : ' The Lake, too, in being published in a separate 
 volume, lost a great deal in range and power, and criticism 
 was baffled by the division of stories written at the same 
 time and coming out of the same happy inspiration . . . 
 the return of a man to his native land, to its people, to 
 memories hidden for years, forgotten, but which rose 
 suddenly out of the darkness, like water out of the earth 
 when a spring is tapped.' 
 
 These Irish stories, a village Odyssey, which he finds 
 very near to his heart, are a witness to that fondness for 
 story-telling which has become a chief characteristic of 
 our author. It is easy to understand why that fondness 
 should especially enfold " So On He Fares," for that is a 
 story born of a mood, a story naturally flowing from the 
 memory of a face, voice, river or shade ; and indeed all 
 these stories clearly have the same effortless origin which 
 it scarcely needed Moore's own preface to suggest. He has 
 little to complain of when he laments the attitude of the 
 clerical mind confronted by "In the Clay'* and "The Wild 
 Goose," for has he not employed the powers of art against 
 the powers of the Irish priesthood ? If his stories had been 
 treated as Rodney's clay was treated, he might have been 
 
167 
 
 angry, but he could not have been surprised ; but there is 
 something ingenuous in his complaint, and the instinct of 
 defence is a perpetual astonishment to him. But I need 
 not pursue the religious question : — pleasanter is it to 
 turn to The Lake and to remark that it is the finest of the 
 Irish stories, and hitherto the only one which the author 
 has found it necessary to revise. No longer is a con- 
 troversial note dominant; like Turgenev, he has allowed 
 the landscape to dominate him, and in this book the beauty, 
 the desire, the sorrow, the constraint, are expressed not 
 simply in character and incident, but also in the lake 
 itself, the reeds and shallows, the trees, the clouds resting 
 upon the trees, and the dark, slow-heaving mountains that 
 form the sullen limits of this remote western world. 
 
 It was by the superabundant kindness of Providence 
 that Moore was permitted to write, for justification of his 
 ten delusive years in Ireland, The Lake as well as Hail and 
 Farewell. The autobiography may seem the work of 
 one who came to pray and remained to scoff, but The Lake 
 is the work of another who came to scoff and remained to 
 pray. The friction with Catholicism is sunken in the 
 stream of beauty that flows tide-like over the narrative, 
 washing the few lonely characters and the lonely landscape 
 with equal power and sureness. The book sums up, not 
 an attitude to Church and priest, but an attitude to man 
 and nature. That the man in whom it is presented 
 should be himself a priest is immaterial, for Moore's vision 
 does not centre upon priest and the world, but upon flesh 
 and spirit, desire and matter. Superficially it is the story 
 of Father Gogarty, who denounces the village school- 
 mistress because she, a young unmarried girl, is about to 
 become a mother. The girl is driven from the parish, but 
 the priest finds that his responsibility does not end with 
 his parish ; his own act, and her possible fate, haunt him, 
 and not until he learns that she is safe in London and 
 earning a living for herself and her baby, not until a frank 
 
168 
 
 correspondence takes place, does he know why he is 
 haunted. It is because he loves her ; but he can never 
 see her again, and his life stretches out before him in an 
 endless chain of crawling, empty years. He does not 
 know clearly whether the girl has become the mistress of 
 her employer or not, but as she travels about the world 
 and sends letter after letter to the priest, he realizes that 
 she is living and he is dead : — 
 
 * She seemed a thing that could not feel 
 The touch of earthly years.* 
 
 But within the superficial story there is another, and the 
 lake itself is but a symbol. Something of the eternal was 
 the girl's animation, and something of the infinite was his 
 desire ; and thus the book discloses the gradual enfran- 
 chisement of the spirit by the primary means of a sensual 
 attraction. The flesh, he writes in another book, the 
 flesh had redeemed the spirit, a thing which does not 
 often happen, for it is usually the spirit that redeems the 
 flesh. That at any rate is the theme, stated abstractly ; 
 more vividly, it is the story of the liberation of Oliver 
 Gogarty, the righteous, by Nora Glynn, the sinner. ' There 
 is a lake in every man's heart, and he listens to its 
 monotonous whisper year after year, more and more 
 attentive, till at last he ungirds.' It is in flying from 
 Ireland and the past that he says this, having already told 
 Nora in his last letter to her, ' I thank you for the 
 liberation you have brought me of body and mind. I need 
 not have added the words " body and mind," for these 
 are not two things but one thing. And that is the lesson 
 I have learned.' 
 
 Moore's reason for liking The Lake is related to the very 
 great difficulty of the telling, for, as he points out in 
 the preface to the revised text, the one vital event in the 
 priest's life befell him before the story opens; but he 
 
169 
 
 adds that the difficulty overcome is a joy to the artist, for 
 in his conquest over the material he draws nigh to his 
 idea. The idea of the book is the essential rather than 
 the daily life of the priest, and he thinks there will always 
 be a few who will find as much life in The Lake as in 
 Esther Waters; not so wide a life, perhaps, but what 
 counts in art is not width but depth. . . . For all the 
 difficulty that confronted him. The Lake is the simplest 
 book in the world to read, and although a large part of it 
 takes the form of letters, the device of letters is accepted 
 as a natural thing. But he remained conscious of the 
 difficulty, and feared that even if he had overcome it he 
 had not achieved the final conquest of concealing it. 
 Hence the patient revision, extending even to names (as 
 though to hypnotize a reader who would like to revert to 
 the earlier text), and in some degree letters are replaced 
 by reveries. 
 
 And here, I think, the significance ot The Lake is 
 touched. It is a beautiful creation, of clear outline and 
 sparse colour, a large conception reduced to its simplest 
 and smallest elements ; but it points to something outside 
 itself — to other books of a new prose, expressing more 
 largely the very mood of The Lake. It is the mood of 
 imaginative reverie, and the prose expressing it is the 
 discovery of George Moore. The Lake bridges the gulf, 
 the deep and mysterious gulf, between Sister Teresa and 
 Memoirs of My Dead Life, and leads you from a scented, 
 languid, babble-echoing air to the serene clarities of The 
 Brook Kerith and Heldise and Ahelard. Plain enough is it 
 now that the mood of imaginative reverie is the peculiar 
 kingdom of our novelist, and the communication of it, the 
 expression of its human sweetness and sadness, his peculiar 
 office. The Lake is full of instances of thought blended 
 with sense, and sense sunken in thought : ' The beautiful 
 evening did not engage his thoughts and he barely 
 listened to the cuckoo, and altogether forgot to notice 
 
170 
 
 the bluebells, campions and cow-parsley ; and it was not 
 until he stood on the hilltop overlooking the lake that 
 he began to recover his self-possession. "The hills are 
 turned hither and thither, not all seen in profile, and that 
 is why they are so beautiful." ' 
 
 But in this simple and direct phrasing the mood has not 
 yet found its perfect voice. The later books have a new 
 cunning in which the words follow the thought as flaws 
 follow the wind's feet over the water ; and since style is 
 of supreme interest in relation to the personality of an 
 artist, I must dwell for a moment on the dedication of The 
 Lake to Mon cher Dujardin. It is dedicated in recompense 
 for the larceny committed by Moore in using the title of 
 Dujardin's book. La Source du Fleuve Chretien, for the title 
 of his fictitious Ralph Ellis's work, and also in memory of 
 old kindness between them. It was in August 1905 that 
 this dedication was written, and written in French, and as 
 soon as it was finished Moore hastened to Dujardin to 
 read the dedication to his friend ; but when he read : — 
 
 ' A Valvins, la Seine coule silencieusement tout le 
 long des berges plates et graciles, avec des peupliers 
 alignes ; comme ils sont tristes au printemps, ces 
 peupliers, surtout avant qu'ils ne deviennent verts, 
 quand ils sont rougeatres, poses contre un ciel gris, 
 des ombres immobiles et ternes dans les eaux, dix fois 
 tristes quand les hirondelles volent bas ! Pour 
 expliquer la tristesse de ce beau pays parseme de 
 chateaux vides, hante par le souvenir des fetes d' autre- 
 fois, il faudrait tout un orchestre. Je I'entends 
 d'abord sur les violons ; plus tard on ajouterait 
 d'autres instruments, des cors sans doute ; mais pour 
 rendre la tristesse de mon pauvre pays \k bas il ne 
 faut drait pas tout cela. Je I'entends tres bien sur 
 une seule flute placee dans une ile entouree des eaux 
 d'un lac, le joueur assis sur les vagues mines d'un 
 reduit gallois ou bien Normand * 
 
 Dujardin wondered what might be the effect of such 
 
171 
 
 phrasing in English, unconsciously suggesting to his 
 bilingual friend the possibility of a prose that should renew 
 the swallow's flight. Falling into so favourable a soil the 
 suggestion could not die^ but shot green above the ground 
 and grew into the shady and murmurous branches of 
 Memoirs of My Dead Life. It may perhaps be doubted if 
 a discovery is ever so sudden and isolated as Moore thinks 
 this discovery to have been ; clearly The Lake had prepared 
 his mind for the seed, and had it not been Dujardin it 
 would have been another. The Lake is nearer to Hail and 
 Farewell than to Evelyn Innes ; the new mood itself begot 
 the new prose. The equal significance of mood and prose 
 is not diminished by remembering that (with the luckless 
 exception of the disinterred Modern Lover) The Lake is the 
 last of Moore's novels ; he was to become an imaginative 
 writer of another kind, and the novel was to thrive and 
 languish where we find it now. 
 
 Three years after The Untilled Field came Memoirs oj 
 My Dead Life, of which a new English edition was issued 
 in 1921 with such additions as testify again to George 
 Moore's peculiar passion for grafting fresh shoots upon old 
 wood. The new mood is expressed in the first words, in 
 the whole of the first scene entitled ' Spring in London ' — 
 a spring that invades poor streets like a flood, and makes 
 the wretched rejoice ; and as serenely beautiful is the 
 chapter that follows, ' Flowering Normandy,* marred only 
 by such a prettification as the river 'looping up the 
 verdant landscape as if it were a gown, running through it 
 like a white silk ribbon, and over there the green gown 
 disappearing in fine muslin vapours.* Already in this 
 chapter he is essaying that favourite dual journey, through 
 space to Paris, through time to youth ; as yet a not quite 
 perfect attempt, but certainly forecasting the success ot 
 later pages and later books. 
 
 Among the Memoirs one might expect to find what is in 
 
172 
 
 fact found, some clear echoes of earlier voices ; and one of 
 these is the voice of an Irish waitress, who served in a 
 cafe in the Latin Quarter. Her face as well as her voice 
 spoke of Ireland, a face showing now but a pale, deciduous 
 beauty. It was of her, the pale phthisical Irish girl, that 
 those verses already cited from Confessions of a Young 
 Man were written, beginning : — 
 
 ' We are alone ! Listen, a little while. 
 And hear the reason why your weary smile 
 And lute-toned speaking are so very sweet.' 
 
 In a slightly different form the same verses appear in 
 Pagan Poems of 1881 — ^ A Une Poitrinaire.' It was after 
 a first and last meeting that he wrote the poem, haunted 
 by the girl's previsioned and near death ; for nothing 
 could save her. 'Twenty years have passed,' he writes, 
 'and I think of her again. ... I bow my head and 
 admire the romance of destiny which ordained that I, 
 who only saw her once, should be the last to remember 
 her.' And again, fifteen years later, he will say, ' I can 
 see her, the poor little Irish waitress, sitting where you 
 sit, as plainly as I can see you. ' Of impressions so brief, 
 so permanent, is art achieved. 
 
 As simply rendered, and only less pathetic, are other 
 incidents of Moore's reminiscence, for he is at times 
 deliberately renewing fading memories, anxious to revive 
 his dead life and in reviving to give it the shape that 
 pleases him now. He cannot look upon Paris without 
 emotion, for he thinks it made him, and now he exists in 
 two countries and is furnished with two sets of thoughts 
 and emotions, especially the pleasure of a literature which 
 is his without being wholly his. He calls himself the 
 youngest of the naturalists, the eldest of the symbolists ; 
 a decayed terminology, truly, in the ears of 1921. He 
 speaks, in the chapter on ' Spent Love,' of women as the 
 legitimate subject of a man's thoughts, saying that women 
 
173 
 
 are forgotten when men think about art, though only for 
 a little while ; but the writing of these Memoirs itself 
 proves, with the support of so much besides, that this is 
 untrue. Again, he remarks that the passing of things is 
 always a moving subject for meditation, but the taking of 
 a pen would destroy the pleasure of meditation. He 
 would give much for another memory, but memory may 
 not be beckoned. 
 
 As token, or instead of another memory, you are offered 
 a long episode, 'The Trovers of Orelay.' It is a curiously 
 artificial piece, a garrulous simulation, into which wanton- 
 ness creeps like a cold, crystal trickling of water. A 
 psycho-analyst has lately decided (in The Erotic Motive 
 in Literature) that it is Moore's habit to write of his own 
 adventures ; but the credulity of certain psycho-analysts 
 is too perfect to be followed by plain folk. Literature, 
 to take one definition of a thousand, is an art of dis- 
 criminations, and I cannot refuse such a primary dis- 
 crimination as that between a violet and an oyster for 
 smell, or Shakespeare and Jonson for sound ; nor can I 
 so easily smother that other simple sense which shows 
 so plainly the difference between what happened once in 
 time and what happened once in idea. It is his crystalline 
 coldness that robs our author's offence of offence, and 
 makes the wantonness of this episode a purely intellectual 
 adventure. There still remains the wonder why a writer 
 of George Moore's genius should care to waste himself in 
 these dubious excursions, but I have already touched this 
 recurring problem too freely to raise it anew on this least 
 provocative occasion. 
 
 The natural disorder of the Memoirs is an advantage 
 when the author, passing from 'The Lovers of Orelay,' 
 needs only a brief transition to the beauty of ' A Remem- 
 brance,' in which familiar Sussex country, the neighbour- 
 hood of Esther Waters and Spring DaySj reminds you yet 
 
174 
 
 again how fondly his thoughts revert to early scenes and 
 eddy round a few clear island figures. He had first met 
 the subject of his reminiscence when he was only 
 eighteen, and was deeply interested in religion and 
 philosophy ; he meets her later when disease has touched 
 but not destroyed her beauty: — 
 
 * She turned and looked at me with that love in 
 her face which an old woman feels for a young man 
 who is something less and something more to her 
 than a son. As a flush of summer lingers in autumn's 
 face, so does a sensation of sex float in such an affec- 
 tion. There is something strangely tender in the 
 yearning of the young man for the decadent charms 
 of her whom he regards as the mother of his election, 
 and who, at the same time, suggests to him the girl 
 he would have loved if time had not robbed him 
 of her youth. There is a waywardness in such an 
 affection that formal man knows not of 
 
 ^ I remember that day, for it was the last time I 
 saw her beautiful.' 
 
 As exquisite is the closing passage — ' I thought of 
 memory as a shrine where we can worship without 
 shame, of friendship, and of the pure escapement it 
 offers us from our natural instincts. ... I knew how 
 much more intense and strangely personal was my love 
 for her than the love which that day I saw the world 
 offering to its creatures.' Such phrases, following so soon 
 after ' The Lovers of Orelay,' make the task of discrimina- 
 tion easy and certain. 
 
 The last chapter is entitled ^ Resurgam.' His mother 
 was dying and he had been summoned to Ireland, and 
 he tells the story of the hasty journey with a candour 
 which should be met with equal candour by the reader, 
 less accustomed perhaps to looking into his own mind 
 with an eye of double- vision. The long ride through the 
 spring-enkindled country was but a parable, for at the 
 
175 
 
 same time his thoughts were roaming back to his own 
 springtide. 'There are times,' he remarks, 'when the 
 present does not exist at all, when every mist is cleared 
 away, and the past confronts us in naked outline ; ' and 
 perhaps that was why it was painful for him to return 
 home. All he saw was associated with his childhood — 
 and every association was turned to pain ; yet amid the 
 pain the unresting mind flows on and he cries, 'We 
 are so constituted that the true and the false overlap 
 each other, and so subtly that no analysis can determine 
 where one ends and the other begins.' The comment is 
 both true and lustrous. He seemed to have become a 
 sheer mentality, a buzz of thought, and it is out of this 
 inward murmuring that his voice issues, now sighing and 
 now singing. He tells of his prolonged prayers — to what 
 God .'* — and of his terror not so much that he might not 
 see his mother alive, but that he might arrive in time 
 to see her die. Vain terror I ' My mother died certainly 
 on the most beautiful day I have ever seen, the most 
 winsome, the most white, the most wanton, as full of 
 love as a girl in a lane who stops to gather a spray ot 
 hawthorn. How many times, like many another, did I 
 wonder why death should have come to anyone on such 
 a bridal-hke day.' Sorrow has an ingenious cunning, but 
 few would utter in such words of beauty and brightness 
 an elegy upon one loved and lost, and enhance the bright- 
 ness by revision many years after. No one dares to speak 
 his thoughts about such a kind of incongruity as death in 
 the midst of quickening spring ; but nevertheless he goes 
 on, saying that the day ' moved slowly from afternoon to 
 evening like a bride hidden within a white veil, her hands 
 filled with white blossom ; but a blackbird, tiny like a 
 humming-bird, had perched upon a bunch of blossom, 
 and I seemed to lose sight of the day in the sinister 
 black speck that had intruded itself upon it. No doubt 
 I could think of something better were I to set my mind 
 
176 
 
 upon doing so^ but that is how I thought, the day I walked 
 on the lawn with my brothers, ashamed and yet compelled 
 to talk of what our lives had been during the years that 
 separated us.* 
 
 Dual consciousness in times of distress is common 
 enough, and it is only the expression of it that is rare. 
 Memoirs of My Dead Life shows, in this single chapter, 
 the clearest following of the double thread ; these sixty 
 pages are elegiac as Lycidas is elegiac, but no more than 
 Lycidas is this prose memory exclusively elegiac. The 
 tenderest of memories are recalled, the simplest of 
 affections, the most human and general of sorrows ; and 
 with these there is heard the accent of the detached 
 mind, amid the funereal foliation a jesting face appears, 
 a mocking smile, the elegist becomes satirist, and you 
 turn the page hastily when you find that, at the moment 
 of the Christian burial of his mother, he smiles at the 
 thought of himself escaping that disgrace and murmurs 
 joyfully, 'O death, where is thy sting?' for he sees, 
 with the far-darting eye of the mind, a Grecian urn 
 and a little pile of white ashes. 
 
 For it is not alone the true and the false that overlap 
 and defeat analysis, but the pure and the perverse, the 
 simple and the cunning, the spirit and the flesh ; one 
 concealing and anon revealing the other, one trampling 
 and now yielding to the other. Here, in this unique 
 prose elegy, the sincere and the assumed, the face and 
 the mask, the spiritually true and the intellectually true, 
 appear and disappear, one passing into the other half im- 
 perceptibly, one suddenly drowned by the other, and still 
 almost imperceptibly. Personality has its different truths, 
 its various planes, its unreconciled opposites, its evanescent 
 distinctions ; in George Moore's best work these are so 
 delicately disposed and so cunningly dispersed, that to 
 pick and choose among instances, rejecting here and 
 enhancing there, is both delusive and exciting. 
 
177 
 
 The end of the chapter is the end of the book. At 
 the moment when the priest began to intone the Pater 
 Noster, Moore's thoughts turned towards the sea^ the 
 only clean and holy receptacle for the vase containing 
 his own ashes. ' If it were dropped where the sea is 
 deepest, it would not reach the bottom, but would hang 
 suspended in dark moveless depths where only a few 
 fishes range, in a cool, deep grave " made without hands, 
 in a world without stain/' surrounded by a lovely revel 
 of Bacchanals, youths and maidens, and wild creatures 
 from the woods, man in his primitive animality.' But 
 nothing endures, all passes away and returns, and with 
 this ancient idea of eternal recurrence singing in his head, 
 he dreams of worlds and aeons, appearing and vanishing 
 and returning again. 
 
 Memoirs of My Bead Life, the first attempt in the 
 author's new style of discursive reminiscence, claims a 
 large part of his fondness as he looks back ; although 
 that style was as yet imperfectly free in movement, 
 transitions being abrupt or absent and the tone uneven. 
 He has avowed his faith that if any twentieth-century 
 literature linger on into the twenty-first, this volume 
 would probably be among the last stragglers. The revised 
 text (1921) is presented in the beautiful privately-printed 
 form of Avowals, and includes chapters which were 
 not offered to the reader of the earlier humble edition. 
 The title-page of the new issue is itself an amusement, 
 as the bibliography will show, but there is a better wit 
 and humour, well matched and moving easily together, 
 in ' Euphorion in Texas.' It is a story of the kind that 
 we look to France to give us, never to England since 
 Sterne died, and even to France often in vain. 
 
 Hail and Farewell has its denominated overture, else the 
 Memoirs might well stand as overture to the great trilogy 
 that followed it a few years after. Both books (like The 
 
 N 
 
178 
 
 Lake and The Untitled Field) are the immediate result of 
 the Irish immersion_, but they are not the sole result. 
 A Story-Teller s Holiday (1918), the first of the famous 
 privately-printed books and the only one in which the 
 author has taken advantage of the immunity peculiar to a 
 private issue, springs out of the same inspiration, and is 
 characterized by his common virtues and excesses. In a 
 brief preface, entitled ' A Leave-Taking/ he speaks half 
 regretfully to his family of readers of the steadfast 
 persecution of his writings ever since Flofvers of Passion 
 was published. The Brook Kerith had but lately been 
 submitted to the indignity of magisterial writs, and yet 
 more recently the unhappy Lewis Seymour and Some Women 
 had become the subject of a libel action, a certain producer 
 of revues complaining that his name had been used by our 
 author. Mr. Justice Darling found even harsher terms 
 than I have used to describe the book, and although the 
 action failed, the humiliation of appearing as defendant 
 was profound. Moore did well, therefore, he thinks, to 
 retire into an arcanum in which he could practise his art 
 in dignified privacy, and write for men and women of 
 letters exclusively. With Landor he might murmur, * I 
 would excite the pleasure (it were too much to say the 
 admiration) of judicious and thoughtful men ; * but he 
 could not quite truthfully proceed, ' I would neither soothe 
 nor irritate these busybodies. I have neither honey nor 
 lime for ants.' There is a careless wisdom in such arro- 
 gance, but it is only partially reached by George Moore. 
 . . . The book betrays the story-teller's proneness to 
 repetition, passages appearing here almost precisely as 
 they appear elsewhere, and critical obiter dicta being 
 expressed, if not in the same terms, at any rate to the 
 same purpose as in other books. The repetitive tendency 
 is sometimes disguised, and memories of his own childhood 
 and youth are given by another's tongue ; hence you find 
 the story of Applely told once again, and told the less 
 
179 
 
 effectively. But the virtues are more conspicuous than the 
 flaws ; Moore may become more garrulous when he speaks 
 of his childhood, and show the common proclivity in telling 
 the same story over and over again ; but when he speaks 
 of his revisiting journey, of spring stepping always a little 
 ahead and putting beauty into everything animate and 
 inanimate, he speaks with the freshness of an enchanted 
 child. In these warm and sunny pastorals, these humbler 
 prose complements to A Sensitive Plant and Endymion, 
 there is a breath of that wandering beauty whose 
 passage redeems the mortal world. And it must be 
 admitted, too, that the other personality whose shadow 
 falls so freakishly across the reader's path wanders here 
 also, telling stories that are not common in English 
 literature but common enough in the language of 
 Boccaccio. The primitive animality of which Moore 
 speaks in Memoirs of My Dead Life suggests the 
 character of the proper audience for certain of these 
 stories, and indeed indicates a quality which he esteems 
 more highly as a vital quality than I can. Once again I 
 am driven to the mere assertion of unreasoned differences 
 and antipathies, the look that glances through the tangle 
 of amorous stories being the look of a younger and wilder 
 Dr. Fell. . . . Strange to me is this intertwisting of the 
 simple and the sensual, but it is a fact that cannot be 
 ignored ; he complicates one thing with another, and 
 were he imagining a Don Quixote he would interfuse 
 with that great nobility something of Sancho Panza, or 
 with Pantagruel something of Panurge, his sympathy 
 naturally and unerringly seeking out the grossly human 
 in the most divinely human of characters. Idealistic 
 sentiments find no sanctuary in his mind ; he welcomes 
 them, sometimes, only to mate them with a masculine or 
 feminine grossness, and present the twin-minded offspring 
 to the Muse. Sometimes in A Story-Teller s Holiday he 
 delights you with a flower of strange beauty and significance 
 
180 
 
 even in the midst of a debateable story : ' Luachet is 
 beautiful, but it wasn't her beauty altogether that drew 
 me. Well, this much I can say with truth, that there is 
 something beyond the lust of the eye, the desire of the 
 flesh, something that is beyond the mind itself, and maybe 
 that thing is the soul ; and maybe the soul is love, and 
 whosoever comes upon his soul is at once robbed of all 
 thought and reason, and becomes like a flower.' And 
 another verity is glimpsed by Marban when he adds : 
 ' It may be that yesterday I would have denied the truth 
 of what I'm now saying to you all. All the same it is the 
 truth I'm telling you.' 
 
 And all the same, the reader may remark, it is the truth 
 that the author's sense of beauty does not always save 
 him, for the last story in this curious medley 'd volume, a 
 story which he is still strangely inclined to prize, shows 
 him exercising an ingenuity which only beauty could put 
 to a sensible purpose ; but beauty is away, and not a touch 
 of her kindness or mystery is visible. It is the story of 
 a waiter in a Dublin hotel, who had for many years passed 
 as a man but was born a woman, and who encounters 
 another in the same case ; and although there is no offence 
 in the episode, the whole story has yet the irrelevance of 
 a dream and the harshness of a nightmare. Sex, sex, you 
 cry impatiently, what is sex doing here? It is the one 
 thing you are conscious of, as you turn and turn the 
 pages, and yet it is without significance ; and at length 
 you come to perceive that the fault of the story is precisely 
 the fault we have found in certain earlier stories — that it 
 is written to a theme and not out of an imagination. Let 
 me write a story, you may fancy the author saying, in 
 which a girl shall pass as a man until old age is nearing ; 
 let her conje near to marriage — what shall I make of such 
 a story ? 
 
 Worse still, he has failed to observe how completely 
 this last story is at odds with all that goes before in 
 
181 
 
 another mood. Ibsen in the midst of the Decameron 
 would hardly appear odder than this story at the end of 
 the romantic narratives told in a lush spring-time by men 
 enchanted by spring. For once Moore's art has stumbled, 
 or it has slept; the naturalist that decayed in Celibates 
 has been resuscitated for a final exercise, and has written 
 as though there had been no interval since Celibates. . . . 
 But this is to labour a fault, and the only justification for 
 doing so is the proof that a hankering after the grotesque 
 can enfeeble the author's instinct for beauty. The two 
 strands of his character as an artist (it is convenient to 
 count them as two, rather than any larger number) have 
 strayed apart, and it is the worser strand that alone is 
 traceable here. For the rest, the book is well-named; 
 the old interest in the story for the story's sake is 
 dominant, and if there is a holiday for anyone, it is not 
 for the artist to whom the visible world appears as fresh 
 and as lovely as to Adam when Lilith was with him, and 
 again when it framed the body of Eve. Some slender 
 tradition may be concealed in the stories told by the 
 author's companion, but they are unembarrassed by the 
 tradition — developed, he says, just as the gipsy develops 
 on his fiddle the snatches of song that he hears the 
 reapers singing in the cornfields. 
 
 With A Story-Teller s Holiday we may dismiss the 
 consideration of Ireland as an immediate influence upon 
 the mental life of our author. A touch of pleasant 
 melancholy and grieving fondness is seen here and there, 
 when he casts his eyes back to the familiarities of child- 
 hood and murmurs : ' It is our former selves that have 
 vanished ; we are always winning and losing something ; 
 nothing is permanent within or without.' Yet even while 
 he charges himself with this inconstancy, he shows that 
 the charge is not wholly true, for his memory is un- 
 changed and undying. But his fidelity is wholly personal ; 
 scarce another soul in Ireland or of Irish birth can please 
 
 / 
 
182 
 
 him; little that is general or national touches his heart 
 for long or deeply; he is as solitary as a hermit, and 
 with the arrogance of isolation can say, 'The falsetto 
 scream that comes out of Ireland and a certain untrust- 
 worthiness in the national character may be traced back 
 to the relinquishment of the right of private judgment.* 
 For him the Catholicism of Ireland is never to be forgiven. 
 Since The Story-Teller s Holiday was published Moore 
 has said little of his native country, and that little not as 
 an artist. At whiles he has shown a consciousness of 
 human affairs, writing letters to The Times and suggesting 
 what practical steps might be taken to end the Irish chaos. 
 Alas, little as the world heeds the artist when he speaks 
 in his own tongue and of his own heaven, it heeds him 
 not at all when he speaks of politics and the follies ot 
 the wise. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE TERMLESS JOURNEY 
 
I do not number my borrowings, I weigh them. 
 . . . Knowledge and truth may be in us without 
 judgment, and judgment also without them ; but 
 the confession of ignorance is one of the finest 
 and surest testimonies of judgment that I know. 
 — Montaigne. 
 
I HAVE referred in an earlier chapter to Moore's regret 
 that when he avowed himself a Protestant at heart, 
 his father did not give him a Bible in order that he might 
 be confirmed in his religious conviction. Nevertheless it 
 was, it seems, to his father that he owed his first interest 
 in St. Paul, the memory of a phrase overheard when he 
 was but a small boy being lodged in his mind and only 
 springing into life many years after. The phrase referred 
 to the pre-eminent part of the Apostle in the establishment 
 of Christianity — without St. Paul there would have been 
 no Christian religion ; a theme with which our author has 
 now become perfectly possessed, and which has imposed 
 upon him a wondering admiration of the supreme genius 
 among all the Apostles. 
 
 The dedication of The Brook Kerith shows that it was 
 not until 1898 that a friend gave him a Bible, and although 
 we are not called upon to believe that he lived for more 
 than forty years without a knowledge of the Scriptures, 
 we have his repeated word that this gift became, from 
 1898 to the publication of The Brook Kerith in 1916, his 
 constant companion and chief literary interest. But The 
 Brook Kerith was not the first sign of that interest ; did 
 not Mike Fletcher, in 1889, talk of a trilogy on the life of 
 Christ? and long after. The Apostle of 1911 and Salve of 
 1912 witness to his vivid delight in the literature of the 
 Bible, and his sense of its spiritual value. Thus he sur- 
 veys the Old Testament in The Apostle and repeats his 
 review in Salve, finding in Genesis a collection of beautiful 
 folk-tales, in the Book of Job and the Psalms a rhetorical 
 note and an absence of piano passages, in Ecclesiastes a 
 beautiful agnostic work, and in the greater and lesser 
 prophets a series of tractates upon morals with but a slight 
 
 186 
 
186 
 
 tincture of literature. The prophets, indeed, disgusted 
 the author of Lewis Seymour and Evelyn Lines — ' The filthiest 
 God that ever came out of Asia ! ' he cried, feeling that he 
 could not stand a moment longer the reek of sacrifice and 
 the howls of dervishes. 
 
 The mere force of his own disgust threw him from the 
 Old Testament to the New, and he continued to read 
 until ravishment overcame him ; how was it that he had so 
 long been persuaded that Christianity had brought nothing 
 into the world but chastity and melancholia ? The ques- 
 tion falls not quite without surprise upon our patient ears, 
 for has it not seemed that Christianity is confounded with 
 Catholicism, and substance with shadow, in the curse 
 which George Moore has so frequently invoked in the 
 name of art, from the day of Confessions of a Young Man to 
 the day of these confessions of an older man ? That note 
 of presumption which the former essay in autobiography 
 sounded in its reference to religion may seem gross 
 and unpardonable as a lapse in civilized manners, until it 
 is remembered that ignorance, pure ignorance, can be 
 pleaded for it ; for ignorant youth is both presumptuous 
 and pardonable. And as the Confessions show Moore at 
 his worst, a merely imitative writer who would be thought 
 French and audacious, so Hail and Farewell and The Brook 
 Kerith show him at his best, no longer an imitative writer, 
 looking with other eyes upon things which had never 
 before troubled his ignorance with questions. 
 
 It is as a man of letters — again and again must we 
 remind ourselves that Moore is wholly and exclusively a 
 man of letters — that he approaches the New Testament 
 and the character of Christ; and when he seeks to dis- 
 cover the clear image of Jesus in the four Gospels his 
 distinctions are purely aesthetic. Thus he is able to 
 decide that St. Luke is an earlier sleek Maeterlinck, and 
 even those who share this enlightened appreciation of 
 Maeterlinck may fail to agree that the Gospel according 
 
187 
 
 to St. Luke is like The Treasure of the Lowly. He passes 
 on to St. Matthew, and again his professional eye is strict, 
 finding the first Gospel a canvas that has passed through 
 the hands of a restorer. St. John, as the work of a later 
 ecclesiastical writer, is yet more briefly dismissed, and it 
 is not until St. Mark's Gospel is reached that Moore 
 catches a glimpse of ' the magnificent heretic' His admira- 
 tion is reserved for St. Mark's narrative, in which he 
 discovers the qualities that we admire in Maupassant; a 
 concise, explicit, objective narrative, the truth of which, 
 in fact, we shall never know, though the imaginative 
 truth is plain. But it is when he leaves the Gospels for 
 the Acts of the Apostles that he is conscious of passing 
 from legend to history, and it is still the aesthetic test that 
 he applies in distinguishing a new voice — the voice of St. 
 Paul. How could St. Luke have written the story of 
 St. Paul's farewell to the Ephesians ? The blind and the 
 deaf know nothing of the art of writing. 
 
 It is St. Paul that fascinates him — and how could he 
 not, and whose is the imaginative mind which has not 
 been subdued by the great Apostle ? The very figure of 
 St. Paul rises up before him as clearly as Don Quixote — 
 a man of middle height, with round head covered with 
 dark curly hair, a short neck, square shoulders, long body 
 and thick legs. The Epistles of St. Paul seem to him the 
 most natural literature in the world, and their author 
 the most human of writers. Inevitably he welcomes the 
 Apostle's discussion of sex, for St. Paul knew how to come 
 to terms with life and thus lived as intensely in the flesh 
 as in his theology. 'But deeper even than the sex 
 mystery is the mystery of Being ; we all ask sometimes if 
 there is divinity and if we are related to the divine, no 
 matter how remotely.' It is in touching, lightly enough, on 
 this mystery that our author finds himself approaching the 
 heart of another — How is it that the Apostle never speaks 
 of the sayings of Christ and seems to have known nothing 
 
188 
 
 of the life ot Christ but three things — the Last Supper 
 and Betrayal, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection ? At 
 once he turns to John Eglinton for enlightenment, and his 
 questions are partly answered and partly forgotten in the 
 mention of a book which contained the views of a certain 
 doctor on the Resurrection. The doctor was inclined to 
 think that Christ had suffered from a cataleptic swoon 
 which had been mistaken for death, and thus His subse- 
 quent appearances were not supernatural at all. 
 
 Moore was already aware of an old legend that after 
 His crucifixion Jesus preached in India, and had read too 
 that He was supposed by some to have been an Essene 
 monk. Why, then, should not He have returned to the 
 monastery, after His wounds had been healed by Joseph 
 of Arimathea ? And why should not St. Paul, many years 
 later, have knocked at the door of that monastery after a 
 day's labouring among the people of the hills ? A wonder- 
 ful meeting it was, as he swiftly pictured it, the climax of 
 a story which possessed him completely and compelled 
 him to dictate the scenario of The Apostle. But why 
 publish it, do you ask ? Because he could not refrain from 
 telling his imagination over and over again, until iothers 
 wanted to collaborate with him in producing a play or a 
 story upon the great theme ; and since he feared that the 
 story might drift into the common mind, and somebody or 
 other write it in a way that would be painful to the 
 only begetter, Moore decided to anticipate the imaginary 
 offender with The Apostle. The Apostle is but a rough 
 sketch for a more deeply considered work. The story ot 
 The Apostle is an invented story, but the story of The 
 Brook Kerith is imaginative ; and it is unnecessary to show 
 in detail the profound difference between the two. You 
 may read the former, but only with difficulty; you will 
 read the latter not without difficulty perhaps (since it is a 
 work of art), but with abundant delight. Moore, in fact, 
 as we have seen again and again, needs to brood upon his 
 
189 
 
 first thought ; or, to change the metaphor, the roots of his 
 conception need to strike deep before they reach the 
 nourishing soil ; and only when the roots have struck the 
 rich darkness of his mind does his conception lift its head 
 beautifully in the light. Hence the hasty Apostle has 
 certain invented scenes and fancies which were found too 
 crude, too violent, for the uses of imagination ; but the 
 purer romantic biography which is given in The Brook 
 Keritk is purged of these and has a harmony of its own — a 
 harmony between the character of Jesus Christ as Moore 
 discovers it, and the incidents upon which that character 
 plays or by which it is moved. 
 
 The Brook Kerith is a simple imagination, and it is the 
 least of its praise that it achieves easily what Renan failed 
 to achieve. Fiom his own allusions you may gather that 
 Moore was in ignorance of Kenan's work, and even of the 
 intention of that work, when The Brook Kerith was con- 
 ceived, and when the book was reviewed he wrote eagerly 
 to explain to his critics the genesis of his imaginary 
 biography; but now, at any rate, he is familiar enough 
 with Renan' s Vie de Jesus to detest it for the prettification 
 of its subject. . . . Nowhere in St. Matthew, St. Mark or 
 St. Luke did he find that Jesus claimed divinity ; but his 
 main difficulty in reading the synoptic gospels was to form 
 a distinct conception of the character of Jesus ; for at one 
 time He is meek as an Essene, and at another rages like 
 the Baptist. He found a clue to the answer in remember- 
 ing that there was an Essene settlement on the eastern 
 bank of the Jordan ; — what was more natural than that a 
 young shepherd should fall under the influence of the 
 Baptist, who was preaching in the neighbourhood ? It 
 seemed that there was reason for holding that Jesus was 
 the disciple of John, and not John the disciple of Jesus ; 
 and what was more natural, again, than that Jesus, preach- 
 ing the doctrine of the Essenes, should become obsessed 
 by the idea of the time, namely, the approach of the end 
 
190 
 
 of the world ? Our author believes this to be his own 
 exegesis, and says that it helped him to catch a glimpse 
 of a man amid the gospel mists. But this was not all, for 
 the story-teller quickening in him again, he imagined a 
 man coming out of a swoon to find all his beliefs false. In 
 such a theme, it appeared, there was a grand opportunity 
 for the psychological narrative that always tempted him. 
 How would life reconstruct itself for Jesus ? Would He 
 not take refuge in His trade, returning to His rams and 
 ewes, and keeping all thoughts of the past out of His 
 mind ? 
 
 He complains that criticism reproached him with the 
 silence of the Essenian Jesus regarding His crucifixion, 
 but that is part of the psychology of Moore's narrative, 
 for he has been careful to represent Jesus as not only 
 unable to speak of the Crucifixion and the ideas that led 
 to it, but unable even to think about them. Immersed in 
 His old shepherd's duties, twelve years pass before He 
 begins to look back ; and after that long silence He would 
 find some difficulty in telling His story. Hence it is not 
 until He is too old for the lonely life of the hills and 
 makes over His flock to another shepherd, that He is able 
 to tell the story to Hazael. 
 
 Much of all this is familiar to those who have read 
 Renan, and less popular authors than Renan. The French 
 writer, for example, sedulously discredits the divinity of 
 Jesus; he too suggests the possibility of Jesus being an 
 Essene, at least in spirit ; he too mentions the influence of 
 anchorites such as Banu, who in the The Brook Kerith 
 directs Joseph of Arimathea to the Baptist ; and he too 
 emphasizes the transition from the exalted tenderness 
 of Jesus at one time, to His exaggerated harshness at 
 another. But Renan's is only one of the many inventions. 
 The idea of the removal of the body of Jesus by Joseph 
 of Arimathea is to be found in earlier fictional lives, with 
 such an epilogue as that He afterwards appeared to Mary, 
 
191 
 
 lived with the Essenes, met the disciples at the Mount of 
 Olives and, taking leave of them, walked up the mountain 
 until a cloud concealed Him; returning then to the 
 Essenes, and only at rare intervals reappearing in human 
 affairs; the occasion chiefly to be noted just now being 
 an encounter with St. Paul on his way to Damascus. 
 Other inventions relate that Joseph of Arimathea, himself 
 an Essene, used Jesus as his tool, and bribed the Romans 
 to permit his rescue of the still animated body from the 
 cross, so that he could remove it to his own tomb and 
 resuscitate it ; and hence it is alleged that the Christian 
 Church had its origin in the Essene order. Yet another 
 alleges that as the Baptist came forth from the Essenes 
 and thought himself Elias, so Jesus, thinking Himself the 
 Messiah, preached a spiritual kingdom, being encouraged 
 by the Essenes and helped by Joseph. The Essene 
 origin of the life of Jesus, and the revival of His body 
 after crucifixion, are features common to many of the 
 earlier imaginary biographies which we owe to Germany. 
 
 That other minds had for long been moving in the 
 same direction as George Moore's is, however, of little 
 significance ; the question of historical primacy is not an 
 important question in a matter of art. The letter killeth, 
 it is the spirit that giveth life ; and Moore's apprehension 
 of his theme is vividly imaginative. He approaches it as 
 an artist, and what I notice infallibly is the ease with 
 which the imaginative tendency is harmonized with the 
 rationalizing tendency. He sees Jesus as a shepherd 
 overswayed by His passion for righteousness, and thinking 
 at length that only His sacrifice can save the world — a 
 painful extravagance of the mind, in Moore's eyes ; and 
 all that he says of Jesus is said from that point of view. 
 And then he sees the shepherd resuming His common 
 life after that lofty and woeful aberration, when the 
 belief for which He suffered — the belief that the 
 Kingdom of Heaven was at hand — had been found 
 
192 
 
 false. But when time and loneliness have enabled Him 
 to look back upon that aberration, St. Paul, the great 
 apostle of the tragic mistake, comes journeying to Rome 
 and testifying to the risen Christ. . . . Everything in the 
 divine story is rationalized — rather say, everything is 
 humanized ; and it is a tribute to the eternal freshness ot 
 the life of Jesus Christ that this re-statement in mere 
 human terms of the divine elements of that life should 
 hold so much of beauty and so much of truth. The 
 author's nature has been subdued to what it works in ; 
 and in the midst of our inquisition into his nature, does 
 it not seem remarkable that the subdual should have 
 been so complete ? Again and again are you made aware 
 of his homage to the figure of Jesus Christ as his 
 imagination perceives it; and more than this, or more 
 than such a recognition, cannot be asked of any man. 
 His attitude has been resented, but can it be resented 
 that he should attempt what painters have attempted.'* 
 To suggest such a comparison seems unfair, but 1 ask 
 myself which represents the finer tribute : the orthodox, 
 unimaginative life of Jesus by Dean Farrar, or the 
 unorthodox, imaginative life by George Moore } Insin- 
 cerity would have made The Brook Kerith detestable, 
 but I do not find insincerity. Some will detest the 
 humanizing of a figure which for two thousand years has 
 borne divine attributes, but it is not a relevant objection. 
 Moore is careful to call his book ^A Syrian Story,' and 
 not the life of the Messiah ; and my own surprise is not 
 that he should have treated his subject in a spirit of 
 rational imagination (the term, I hope, will be allowed), 
 but that he should be almost alone aniong English writers 
 to treat it thus. 
 
 He approaches his subject as an artist, I said ; and from 
 the humble technical position his manner of approach 
 seems to me of singular beauty. He looks through the 
 eye of a child, and Joseph of Arimathea is all but the first 
 
193 
 
 child among Moore's characters. With what a melodious 
 phrase does the book open — ^It was at the end of a 
 summer evening, long after his usual bedtime, that 
 Joseph, sitting on his grandmother's knee, heard her tell 
 that Kish, having lost his asses, sent Saul, his son, to seek 
 them in the land of the Benjamites and the land of 
 Shalisha, whither they might have strayed. But they 
 were not in these lands. Son, she continued, nor in Zulp, 
 whither Saul went afterwards.' Happily the method of 
 our study does not enjoin upon me the summarizing of 
 the story, but it permits my pointing out anew Moore's 
 characteristic virtues. He is said to indulge in an 
 incredible prolixity, and that is only partly true ; indeed, 
 at times his narrative moves with only too much swiftness, 
 and you are compelled to read narrowly in order to note 
 important transitions, such as that from the gentle to the 
 terrible Jesus. Generally, however, the favourite manner 
 of reflective recapitulation is indulged in freely, and if 
 it results in making a long book, it is because incidents 
 are many and thoughts are legion, and only life is short. 
 He indulges, too, in another favourite method in his 
 third chapter, when he resorts to a picturesque recital of 
 the visit of vagabonds to Tiberias, a chapter in which 
 mediaeval Europe is thrust back to the first century and 
 a full foretaste of the romance of Heldise and Ahdlard is 
 offered. 
 
 Imagination, again, transcending the necessities of 
 invention, is evident in his presentation of the central 
 figure at first through the loyal and affectionate eyes of 
 Joseph of Arimathea, and then directly, without the 
 intervention of another, when Joseph is dead and Jesus 
 returns to His old pastures. That vast and signifi- 
 cant transition (at which we have already glanced) is 
 managed quite simply by means of an incident occurring 
 when Joseph is about to lead Jesus back to the old 
 settlement. A wandering breeze carries the smell of the 
 o 
 
194 
 
 camel-driver's sheepskin straight into Jesus* nostrils, and 
 
 like one in a dream He questions the camel-driver 
 
 regarding the quality of the flocks. Who was thy master ? 
 
 asks the camel-driver; and Jesus replies that His 
 
 acquaintance with sheep came from His association with 
 
 the Jordan Essenes. His thoughts are at once immersed 
 
 in His old task, and when the two travellers reach the 
 
 monastery it is with a simple phrase that Hazael greets 
 
 Him — ' So thou hast come back to us ! ' forbearing to 
 
 ask questions concerning the three years of separation, 
 
 since the shepherd's face forbids inquiry. If things are 
 
 said or done that remind Jesus of His late experiences. 
 
 He covers His face for sorrow, since His memory is clear 
 
 enough to make the reminder easy and bitter. A day 
 
 may come, says Joseph privately to Hazael, when Jesus 
 
 will tell His story ; and with hardly another word for 
 
 our ears Joseph himself passes out of the narrative, being 
 
 slain by the Zealots in Jerusalem as one of the Nazarene's 
 
 friends. News of Joseph's death on His account reaches 
 
 Jesus and He grieves with more than mortal grief. A 
 
 shepherd's preoccupation was necessary, it has been said, 
 
 to save Jesus from complete despair by saving Him from 
 
 thought; and it is in the recital of this that Moore's 
 
 imagination is most happily alive ; the finest instance 
 
 being his relation of the search of Jesus for a ram to 
 
 renew the flock of the Essenes and His return (the symbol 
 
 or the parable is left for the reader's perception) with the 
 
 ram in His bosom. But it is not until the conclusion of 
 
 the book draws near that the lyric becomes dramatic, 
 
 with the advent of St. Paul preaching the risen Christ on 
 
 his way to Rome. I repeat that the historical truth of 
 
 the episode is irrelevant when an imaginative story is 
 
 being considered. 
 
 And here I might note again the change that takes 
 place between The Apostle and The Brook Kerith ; for in 
 the former the hero is St. Paul and the story develops 
 
195 
 
 around the Apostle, the more impressive figure ; but in 
 The Brook Kerith he is a secondary figure, and the reader 
 looks at him with the eyes of Jesus, and not at Jesus 
 through the eyes of the Apostle. ... Is any imaginative 
 synthesis more quick with passion than this of St. Paul's 
 encounter with Jesus — St. Paul on his way to preach the 
 risen Christ and the salvation of the world by faith, and 
 Jesus vainly striving to dissuade him from preaching an 
 illusion } At first the vehement Apostle denies that Jesus 
 is the crucified Jesus risen from the tomb, and a great 
 pity for him takes possession of Jesus as they walk side 
 by side across the hills ; but when at length St. Paul 
 can no longer dispute His identity he answers, 'Thou'rt 
 Jesus of Nazareth, I deny it not, but the Jesus of 
 Nazareth that I preach is of the spirit and not of the 
 flesh, and it was the spirit and not the flesh that was 
 raised from the dead.' Painful and profound is the 
 moment when Jesus shows His hands and feet for 
 testimony that it was indeed He that was crucified and 
 removed from the tomb; and again the Apostle answers 
 inflexibly that his Christ is not of this world. And painful 
 too is that other moment when Jesus tells him that it is 
 in His mind to go once more to Jerusalem, so that the 
 priests may know that He whom they believe to be raised 
 from the dead still lives in the flesh ; and so the world be 
 saved from a delusion. 
 
 The English language has been brought to a new 
 exercise in the prose of Moore's story, and that is honour 
 enough for an author and joy for a reader. I have already 
 referred to the lovely pastoral episode of Jesus' journey 
 for a young ram, but I have not recorded an illustration of 
 one manner in which an imaginative writer works. It 
 was while his mind was full of the story that Moore, 
 walking in Ireland, was troubled by the incessant bleating 
 of a lamb which the shepherd said was without a mother ; 
 
196 
 
 the ewe (the yoe, as our author prefers to call it) having 
 been killed by a stray ball. It would be dead by the next 
 morning, said the shepherd, for another ewe would not 
 feed it. How could it be saved ? Imagine Jesus receiving 
 a forlorn lamb, how could He save it ? Another shepherd 
 was asked, and he had saved many lambs by cutting a 
 stem of elder, extracting the pith, and tying a rag at one 
 end for the lamb to suck while the ewe's milk was poured 
 in at the other. So the episode was complete in his mind, 
 and Jesus, saving the young ram by this device, was 
 Himself saved by His care for it from the despair caused 
 by the news of Joseph's death. — The incident is trifling, 
 but the mental processes of an artist are never insignificant, 
 and it is not superfluous to remember that the mind does 
 not create out of nothing. The pastoral note, sounding so 
 lightly in this reference, is heard throughout the narrative, 
 and is dominant in those many passages in which music 
 and colour are employed in the reading of landscape. It 
 is not the traditional Palestine but the soft, green, 
 remembered Ireland that is presented again and again ; — 
 Christ in Ireland might well be used as a sub-title, if 
 regard be given chiefly to Moore's water-colour. Nor 
 is it simply that the prose is beautiful ; it is radiant 
 with a beauty which Moore did not discover by his single 
 visit to the Holy Land, but by the idleness of earlier days 
 in his native country. Compare a brief passage such as : — 
 
 ' Every breath of air brought a new and exquisite 
 scent to him, and through the myrtle bushes he 
 could hear the streams singing their way down to the 
 lake ; and when he came to the lake's edge he heard 
 the warble that came to his ear when he was a little 
 child, which it retained always. . . . But suddenly 
 from among the myrtle bushes a song arose. It 
 began with a little phrase of three notes, which the 
 bird repeated, as if to impress the listener and prepare 
 him for the runs and trills and joyous little cadenzas 
 
197 
 
 that were to follow. A sudden shower of jewels it 
 seemed like, and when the last drops had fallen the 
 bird began another song, a continuation of the first, 
 but more voluptuous and intense ; and then, as if he 
 felt that he had set the theme sufficiently, he started 
 away into new trills and shakes and runs, piling 
 cadenza upon cadenza till the theme seemed lost, 
 but the bird held it in memory while all his musical 
 extravagances were flowing, and when the inevitable 
 moment came he repeated the first three notes ' 
 
 with a passage by Mr. G. K. Chesterton : — 
 
 'One can only say that the whole landscape was 
 like a leper. It was of a wasting white and silver 
 and grey, with mere spots of decadent vegetation like 
 the green spots of a plague. In shape it not only 
 rose into horns and crests like waves or clouds, but I 
 believe it actually alters like waves or clouds, visibly, 
 but with a loathsome slowness. The swamp is alive. 
 And I found again a certain advantage in forgetful- 
 ness ; for I saw all this incredible country before I 
 even remembered its name, or the ancient tradition 
 about its nature. Then even the green plague-spots 
 failed, and everything seemed to fall away into a 
 universal blank under the staring sun, as I came, in 
 the great spaces of the circle of a lifeless sea, into the 
 silence of Sodom and Gomorrah.' 
 
 It is plain that in this picture of the unholy spot ot 
 the Holy Land, Mr. Chesterton has worked more directly 
 and presented more sharply a vision that is not simply 
 external. George Moore's rendering is translated into 
 memories of childhood and Mayo, and Mr. Chesterton's 
 into memories of moral quake and triumph ; but each is 
 characteristic prose — the one transpicuous and fluent as 
 sliding water, the other vigorous, clamant, startling. 
 
 Memory is short, and the discussion — not quite un- 
 deliberately provoked, perhaps — which followed The 
 Brook Kerith, may have been quickly forgotten ; and I 
 
198 
 
 might remind the forgetful reader that the story was 
 assailed by orthodox writers who were unwilling to admit 
 any other criterion than that of conformity to an accepted 
 type. The violence of objectors became vicious, and the 
 voices of those who welcomed the book were still very 
 small. Moore, in fact, was made to suffer for having 
 written such a story as Evelyn Innes. I regret it, because 
 The Brook Kerith thus achieved notoriety, and notoriety 
 obscured for a time its simplicity. Unluckily, too, the 
 author made the profound mistake of following his narra- 
 tive with Lewis Seymour, an example of levity which was 
 bound to distress the faithful and rejoice the malicious. 
 And had he not, years before, offended the libraries with 
 the severe morality of J Mummers Wife? So The Brook 
 Kerith was banned, and criticism gave way to intolerance. 
 Nor could his admirers derive much comfort from reflecting 
 that he had courted the attack, for it is deplorable that a 
 work of imagination should be regarded as an obscene 
 scrawl. If aesthetic considerations be ignored (and his 
 aestheticism, as we have noted, is the writer's all), there 
 is yet another consideration to be weighed, namely, his 
 own justification for treating Jesus Christ as human and 
 not as the Son of God. Had he printed a single one of 
 the many meditated prefaces, or a single one of the 
 retorts which quivered on his eager tongue, he would 
 have reminded us that the humanity of Jesus Christ is 
 no new assertion, and that Christianity, in its recurrent 
 renewal, may even now be striving towards a new appre- 
 hension of the man, rather than maintaining its assertion 
 of the God. . . . But theological argument is apart from 
 my power and purpose, and I am only concerned to 
 remember that an heretical book is not necessarily bad 
 literature. 
 
 In an essay by James Elroy Flecker, whose early death 
 robbed our time of a true poet, the unending, needless 
 
199 
 
 quarrel between art and the world is re-phrased in a 
 dialogue intended for the rebuke of the world that ignores 
 the living artist and discovers the dead : — 
 
 ' Come out and love, Pentheus . . . leave your 
 ridiculous concerns, your childish politics, your 
 amusingly ugly towns. There are lands where sun- 
 light and harmony are not yet dead ; there are 
 the absurdest poets leading lobsters on strings and 
 charming all the sylvan beasts by their pleasant 
 ways. . . . 
 
 ' Then that man answers : My dear sir, 1 am 
 entirely with you. You must not imagine that in 
 the midst of more serious pursuits I have neglected, 
 or even desired to neglect, the interests of Art. . . . 
 I need only refer to my art galleries, to the Royal 
 Academies, and to the great efforts I have made to 
 provide all who come to the County Council schools 
 with a sound grounding in English literature, starting 
 with Beowulf, and tracing the gradual development 
 of Idealism down to the death of Tennyson.' 
 
 The quarrel is unending because it is based upon a 
 fallacy or confusion of the kind to which human nature 
 is prone ; and it is the artist himself who yields to it, 
 for, oppressed by failure and discouraged by unworthy 
 success, he is apt to cry out upon those who pass his 
 work unheeding. He is apt to complain that the world 
 does not welcome or even endure art, and he sometimes 
 fosters a suspicion of hostility when at worst there is but 
 ignorance and indifference. Driven back upon himself, 
 he becomes querulous or arrogant — moods that are acid 
 to his work; and that is far more lamentable than the 
 injustice of his attitude towards the world. The letters 
 of George Meredith teem with unhappy evidence of this 
 confusion, presenting the tragic comedy of a bright genius 
 in the midst of a world which it disdained to please, yet 
 could not quietly forgive for not being pleased. 
 
200 
 
 But art does not exist to conciliate the world, nor the 
 world to recognize art. Art exists for itself, an eternal 
 expression of the zest of creation, knowing no joy but in 
 the consciousness of existence, and content if it find space 
 and time for its movement. By its mere existence it 
 atones for the coarseness of the world, whose veins it 
 animates with a finer essence ; but the artist has no 
 complaint if the world is ignorant of his aim and 
 indifferent to his emotion, for he is paid and overpaid by 
 that mere consciousness of creation. Enemies he has, 
 but the world is not one of them. His chief enemy hides 
 slily in his own heart, and another is Marvell's enemy : — 
 
 * At my back I always hear 
 Time's winged chariot hurrying near. 
 And yonder all before us lie 
 Deserts of vast eternity.' 
 
 Creative art is a world in itself, obedient to other laws, 
 bound by other obligations of honour, than the laws and 
 obligations of the social world. Some men may be called 
 to serve and shape the world, and if the artist is deaf to 
 that call, pursuing an Idea, an imagination of his mind, 
 he is not to lament that the world is deaf to him. The 
 more original his creation, the more vexing it will be to 
 the unimaginative mind, and he need not attempt to 
 make the best of both worlds ; for having chosen the 
 immaterial, the material world will probably forget to 
 choose him. 
 
 And in this attitude of independence there will be no 
 more than a healthy, natural pride, a pride so near to 
 humbleness that the artist will have no room for rancour. 
 ^ The large, dull, indocile world,' he will murmur, ' has no 
 great occasion to delight in what I have done ; the delight 
 is mine, and no material recognition, however brave 
 and sumptuous, can reward immaterial creation ; I am 
 content.' . . . Sometimes, by the very wildest felicity. 
 
301 
 
 material recognition does fall upon the creator — absurd 
 and welcome luck ! but it is as incalculable as spring 
 in winter. 
 
 George Moore has seldom endured injuries in silence, 
 and I have already alluded to his resentment — perfectly 
 just and perfectly vain — of the attitude of the libraries 
 towards certain of his books. In those books he 
 challenged the world, and the world replied in its old 
 dull-eared way that makes recrimination useless. But 
 there is something finer than resentment in his regard 
 for his calling: there is pride, and a jealousy for the 
 honour of English letters ; and although it does not 
 persuade him into muting his tongue to shy whispers 
 and becoming as other men (and therefore less himself), 
 it secures him against worse than casual lapses. His 
 pride extends to the outward form of a book, demanding 
 the same conscience in the type-founding, type-setting 
 and paper-making as he has himself come to observe in 
 the diligent art of an author. The Brook Kerith showed 
 the first and admirable sign of this rare concern, but 
 A Story -T eller s Holiday is a better as well as a more 
 costly example. The suggestion having been made that 
 in issuing expensive and fine books he is actuated only 
 by a spirit of gain, he answers : A strange charge to bring 
 against a man who has worked for thirty years, week in, 
 week out, at a craft in which he is considered a master- 
 craftsman by common consent without ever making two 
 thousand a year, very rarely one thousand, more often 
 merely a few hundreds ! He adds, Let none read in this 
 statement a complaint of injustice done to me. My 
 recompense is the full enjoyment of my craft, and in 
 circumstances so favourable that it is often a wonder to 
 me that I did not do better than I have done. To escape 
 from useless regret I fall to thinking of the difficulties 
 that beset every man who goes forth with an ideal in 
 his mind. 
 
202 
 
 He is bound by those strict, intangible bonds which are 
 at once a trouble and delight, and especially a trouble 
 because the queer wantonness that lurked within the 
 earlier writer has never been quite suppressed in the 
 later. The desultory war between sense and spirit seems 
 to have been revived at times almost with deliberation, 
 as though for his own disengaged pleasure ; and the 
 sound of that conflict, even partly hushed, is never 
 wholly pleasant and yields only a speculative interest. 
 ' Unhappy,' he once wrote, ' is he who forgets the morals, 
 the manners, the customs, the material and spiritual life 
 of his country.' Sometimes his own vision is forgotten or 
 defied, but the more secure he becomes in the art of 
 writing — I mean by that something beyond grammatical 
 or stylistic craft — the less easy is his surrender to the 
 satyr-like mood against which my constant protest is 
 directed. His temptation has not been to court the 
 world but to shock it, a subservience as ill-seeming as 
 any compliance ; but the temptation has become weaker, 
 or his strength greater, and he has steadily grown in 
 loyalty to the invisible world of his choice. 
 
 His attitude towards his art and his attitude towards 
 the world are discovered, implicit or explicit, in every 
 book, for it is peculiarly true of Moore that his art is 
 a personal one ; and he himself has said, in speaking of 
 his admired Turgenev, that the impersonality of the 
 artist is the vainest of delusions. Personality informs 
 not merely his novels, the books (that is) which commonly 
 and alone are called creative art ; nor merely his imagin- 
 ative memoirs, which no definition as yet has covered ; 
 but also his criticism, which, as we have already seen, 
 is straightforward and vigorous in Modem Painting and 
 Impressions and Opinions, but far more intimate and 
 ponderable in Avoivals and sundry prefaces. Avowals, 
 above all, expresses Moore's attitude towards the art 
 
203 
 
 through which he looks out upon life. In the perfection 
 of prose fiction he seeks for a lucidity and profundity 
 of apprehension, whereby life shall be manifested as order 
 as well as tumult, deep as well as broad ; and Avowals 
 is his Odyssey, an Odyssey with disappointment on every 
 day's horizon, but bloomed over with amber clouds and 
 winnowed continually by fresh hopes. He is, he acknow- 
 ledges, without erudition, as many of the ancients were, 
 but he thinks the eyes of the ancients are his. 
 
 His thesis is that only the subaltern mind has attempted 
 prose narrative in England, the English genius having 
 accomplished little or nothing outside poetry. Perhaps 
 there is the merest touch of a grudge in this view, for 
 the author of Hail and Farewell is not satisfied that a 
 poet should write nothing but poetry, which he sees as 
 a lyrical flower, sudden and unpredictable, and not the 
 main engagement of a serious mind. On points like these 
 discussion with him is in courtesy impossible. ... I do 
 not know what degree of complicity in these conversations 
 Mr. Edmund Gosse might admit, but certainly they are 
 so contrived as to present a serious argument with an 
 ease, a vivacity, a brilliance and a simplicity which make 
 Avowals the worthiest book to set beside the Imaginary 
 Conversations of Landor, of whom Moore gives you the 
 frankest and most assured of reminders. There are 
 felinities of touch which Mr. Gosse might resent, if he 
 did not remember that they are the felinities of friendship 
 and therefore, perhaps, not unpardonable. Waiving the 
 smaller Elizabethan romances, the discussion starts with 
 Robinson Crusoe, although our author would rather have 
 started with Fielding; but the reference to Defoe gives 
 him the opportunity of obscuring his thesis with the 
 remark that inferior writers seized upon English prose 
 narrative as a means of getting money. Luckily he does 
 not proceed to assert that writing for money annihilates 
 the creative purpose, but he metaphorizes his objection 
 
204 
 
 by saying that English fiction never finishes gallantly — 
 it is a hackney, while French and Russian narrative shows 
 breeding. Nobody, he adds, was more terre a terre than 
 Crusoe, and England expressed herself uncommonly well 
 in her first narrative. Audacious still, he throws out 
 hints for the better completion of Robinson Crusoe^ for he 
 would fain make it finish gallantly, instead of finishing 
 dead ; and why, he asks, should we not re-arrange literary 
 masterpieces } Because, it may be answered, some George 
 Moore of the future, surveying a mutilated George Moore 
 of the past and regarding the offence as rank, might be 
 pricked to murder ; and, more seriously, a book that lives 
 long enough to provoke such questions means one thing 
 to one age, and something else to another. And the 
 value of a book, as Moore knows as well as any author, 
 consists in the individuality and not in the commonalty 
 of its authorship. Esther Waters amended by an aspiring 
 youth of 1950 — no! . . . Already, he would have us 
 believe, it saddens him to think that the next generation 
 may be more concerned with his writings than with 
 Landor's or Pater's, and merely because his own are 
 inferior. But it is worth while to note this plea of our 
 author's, for he has illustrated a like discontent and 
 restlessness in regard to many of his own books, giving 
 them, if not new ends, new bodies, more athletic and 
 shapely outlines, and brooding upon his own successes 
 like a peacock within his tent of splendid plumes. 
 
 There is much to argue about in these serenely nimble 
 conversations, for almost every page has its provocation; 
 but in the midst of questionings it is delicious to hear 
 Moore's tribute to Cervantes, who used an eternal gesture 
 and whose genius dwarfed even Turgenev's; for it is 
 easier for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of 
 Heaven than for a popular writer to step within the 
 brilliant disc of Moore's praise. But when he returns 
 to the English novel it is to find it silly, illiterate, 
 
205 
 
 sentimental, erudite and so forth by turns, but never 
 serious ; and by his rigid if indefinable standards to declare 
 that George Eliot was trivial and Sterne serious. Let it be 
 remembered here that our author does not easily indulge 
 in paradox, and certainly not when he goes on to say that 
 A Sentime?ital Journey recalls antiquity. The chief interest 
 of the conversations, however, does not lie immediately in 
 the critical opinions so freshly presented, but in their 
 illumination of Moore's mind, the candid survey of which 
 is his own dispassioned concern. The time will come, he 
 says to Mr. Gosse, when memories will seem like hips 
 and haws hardly worth the gathering; and he adds that 
 the feminine trouble will be the first to disappear. It 
 you are a little weary of yourself, is the reply, it is 
 because you have lost the habit of reading ; and he admits 
 having invested too much in art. ... It was in 1885, 
 when he went to Moore Hall to write Muslin, that he 
 first read Marius the Epicurean, and was so overwhelmed 
 by it that he wanted to return to London in order to 
 find how such a book was appreciated there. His 
 mother, he says, asked what matter it was how the book 
 was received in London since he liked it : — ' You're 
 always asking people for their opinions, but I don't think 
 you ever take them.' But his idea was not to listen but 
 to speak and say, with apostolic accent, that Pater had 
 added a prose work to English literature ; and his account 
 of the guarded personality of his subject has a special 
 interest. Moore claims a genius for intimacy, and shows 
 Pater as possessing a genius for disguise and detachment ; 
 and you may imagine something amusing and something 
 pathetic in the contact or conflict of the two writers. 
 For intimacy proved impossible, though Moore speaks of 
 his relation with Pater as having been almost affectionate ; 
 and hence he sums up in a too-neat and narrow phrase — 
 'A shy, sentimental man, all-powerful in written word, 
 impotent in life.' Affection seems to have died as 
 
206 
 
 suddenly as it grew ; it is a judgment which falls 
 strangely from our author, whose powers have been so 
 faithfully concentrated on the written word, and displayed 
 so negligently in 'life.' Nevertheless the intellectual 
 recognition is constant, for he still regards Pater as the 
 writer of the most beautiful of modern English prose, 
 although without pointing precisely to his supreme 
 achievement — the cold, crystalline, faint-flushed picture 
 of Sebastian van Storck and a few other unfading water- 
 colours. Had Moore followed his disparagement with 
 some warmer praise, his portrait of Pater would have 
 been unquestionable. 
 
 His appreciation of Pater's prose is almost the only 
 exception to his generally unsympathetic view of contem- 
 porary writers. It is fortunately unnecessary to recite 
 instances of depreciation, or to account for it beyond 
 mentioning the commonly noted failure of the imaginative 
 artist, in whatever medium he may work, to apprehend 
 the significance of another's creation. Concentration 
 involves sacrifice, even if it be but an involuntary and 
 unconscious sacrifice ; and perfect responsiveness to the 
 imaginations of others is hardly to be expected of an 
 artist who is intensely preoccupied with his own. Henry 
 James, restless analyst as he avows himself, lacked some- 
 thing of the amenity of perfect apprehension, growing 
 into himself, his manner sinking slowly and deeply within, 
 until his later writing appeared to some the ultimate 
 refinement and to some the ultimate perversion of his 
 earlier ; and how then could he retain that freshness and 
 immediacy of response which was once to be found in his 
 references to others.^ But Moore's attitude was already 
 far more inflexible than Henry James's, and his natural 
 readiness less marked, even when his own characteristics 
 were unformed or unrecognizable. James, it seems, 
 thought A Mummer s Wife too long, and said (the author 
 concurring) that it seemed to have been thought in 
 
207 
 
 French and inadequately translated; and it is in con- 
 trasting A Muynmers Wife with The Portrait of a Lady 
 that Moore complains that James is mistaking trivial 
 comments about men and women for psychology. That 
 which is firmly and clearly imagined, he adds, needs no 
 psychology; Hamlet and Don Quixote are psychologies, 
 and so is Dick Lennox, though a long way off. He found 
 that Henry James was too analytic for creation, an 
 opinion that is not offered as more than an opinion. He 
 is impatient of those etherealized reveries, those infinitely 
 refined discriminations, those wing-like and unabiding 
 shadowings, which distinguish the later novels of Henry 
 James from the earlier as plainly as from all other novels 
 save those of sedulous disciples. Such complexities of 
 narrative tease and bewilder Moore, for his own narrative 
 has steadily become a simpler, single strand, clear as a 
 stream drawing its delicious coolness over a shining bed, 
 beneath green weeds and their shadows. That The 
 Ambassadors and The Golden Bowl should have flowed 
 inevitably down from the spring that once gave us The 
 Portrait of a Lady and The Passionate Pilgrim seems not 
 to have occurred to Moore's speculations ; yet is it less 
 surprising than that A Modem Lover should have trickled 
 on to Evelyn limes, and all the first turgidity been lost in 
 the clear waters of The Brook Kerith ? 
 
 However Moore may have failed in comprehension of 
 others, he has offered the wise and true doctrine for their 
 acceptance — * If we would appreciate a writer, we must 
 take into account his attitude towards life, we must dis- 
 cover if his vision is mean or noble, spiritual or material.' 
 The sentence comes astonishingly in the middle of an 
 essay in which the merits of Mr. Rudyard Kipling are 
 applauded ; astonishment being thoughtlessly based upon 
 the fact that Moore, who deplored the development of 
 Henry James, should have praised the development of 
 so alien an artist as Mr. Kipling. But astonishment is 
 
208 
 
 stupid, for he has so carefully trained himself in candid 
 expression that what he says, whether of Henry James 
 or Kipling, of Dostoeffsky or Turgenev, may be listened 
 to as a kind of acute and innocent thinking aloud ; and 
 this remains the grand virtue of Avowals. Moore does 
 not attempt the kind of wisdom that the late Remy de 
 Gourmont had attained when he reminded us that, ^ If 
 there were an art in writing, it would be nothing more or 
 less than the art of feeling, the art of seeing, the art of 
 hearing, the art of using all the senses, whether directly 
 or through the imagination ; and the new, serious method 
 of a theory of style would be an attempt to show how 
 these two separate worlds — the world of sensations and 
 the world of words — penetrate each other.' But the 
 French critic describes precisely Moore's own practice, 
 which achieves in Avowals a perfect harmony of his 
 thoughts — flowing on, now bright, now deep, sometimes 
 slowly, sometimes swiftly, and sometimes bearing an echo 
 of the masculine and curt phrase of Walter Savage Landor. 
 
 The story in Celibates called 'John Norton' has the 
 interest of a reference to the subject of one of the chief 
 works of Moore's later maturity, Helo'ise and Abelard. 
 Norton, it may be remembered, is the essential celibate 
 who, shrinking from the abyss of marriage, is thankful for 
 the tragedy that saves him from marriage. ' He knew now 
 that he could not have fulfilled the life of marriage. . . . 
 They could not have lived together. They would have 
 had to part. His life and hers would have been irretriev- 
 ably ruined, and then } John remembered the story of 
 Abdard and Heloise. A new Abelard — a new Heloise ! ' 
 The reference is sufficiently early to suggest that the 
 subject of Moore's romance of Heloise and the great clerk 
 and great lover was for many years among those teasing 
 and obstinate themes which float in the mind, now on the 
 surface, and now submerged and forgotten. Moore had 
 
209 
 
 forgotten Pater s few pages in The Renaissance when he 
 composed his own book, and is glad he had forgotten them 
 and was not disturbed by those other harmonies of Pater's 
 early prose. 'True child of light, the humanist, with 
 reason and heart and senses quick,' is Pater's phrase for 
 the great mediaeval philosopher who overthrew his rivals 
 until he himself was overthrown by his passion for Heloise, 
 married her, was separated and mutilated, and stole a 
 flame-like immortality from the few letters attributed to 
 Heloise and himself. Pater is not concerned with Heloise, 
 and it marks Moore's distinction from him that the title 
 of his romance should be Heloise and Abelard and not 
 Ahelard and Heloise. Pater presents Abelard, in his all 
 too few pages, as an influence rather than as a man and 
 lover — 'he prefigures the character of the Renaissance, 
 the movement in which, in various ways, the human mind 
 wins for itself a new kingdom of feeling, sensations and 
 thought ; ' but Moore in his two volumes presents him 
 chiefly as lover, as gleeman, and far less fully as theologian 
 or philosopher. He quite simply justifies himself by 
 insisting that he is writing Heloise and Abelard and not 
 another book, using the painful story of their love, separa- 
 tion and last meeting, and forbearing to touch that after 
 period with which the letters are concerned. The unhappy 
 monk who cried so solemnly against the beloved sins of 
 the past is an unforgettably sad and great figure ; and 
 those sins, that thwarted passion, that pride, that madness 
 of mind and body — they are the features of Moore's 
 portrait of the heretical humanist, broken once upon the 
 wheel of personal revenge, and again upon the wheel ot 
 an incensed Church. Thus, while it would be untrue to 
 say that Moore has given you the Abelard of the letters, 
 it is true that he has given you something at least of the 
 faint-traditioned Abelard whose passions were abjured and 
 lamented by the Abelard of the letters. Scholars, of 
 whom I am not even the least, have objected against the 
 
210 
 
 unveracity of Moore's history. It is said, to use a small 
 instance, that Heloise could not, if she would, turn down 
 the leaves of Fulbert's Virgil and Ovid and the rest ; that 
 the beautiful and curious missal sent from Argenteuil to 
 the Bishop of Lichfield could not have been in existence 
 when Heloise stood admiring it after her parting from 
 Abelard ; and even that the friars, in whose guise Abelard 
 led Heloise from her home, had not then made their 
 appearance in European history. Moore promptly answered 
 contentions such as these when suggested by his reviewers ; 
 his answer being not that he knew that there were 
 anachronisms and that they were immaterial — a quite 
 simple and admissible answer — but that there were no 
 substantial anachronisms ; an answer (he still adds to it 
 by repetition) which scholars, I believe, have gently 
 declined to admit. The point remains a slight one, save 
 in so far as Moore's denial illuminates the tenacity with 
 which he will cling to any position in which he happens 
 to have been opposed. 
 
 And after the scholar, the less positive literary critic 
 may object to certain passages, saying that such a phrase 
 as, * The world within us has been enlarged, horizons 
 have been put back,' comes oddly from a twelfth-century 
 conversation, even when the speaker is the great 
 philosopher himself ; and saying, again, that the repetition 
 of 'the grey idealistic eyes' of Heloise sounds no less 
 oddly in scrupulous ears. He will say that if there is any 
 tediousness in this long narrative, it comes with the 
 introduction of the Courts of Love and the elaboration of 
 scenes which seem but tiresome anticipations of the 
 eighteenth century — a twelfth-century Fete Galante. 
 
 But when scholar and critic have said what they would 
 upon such points, there are far more vital things to 
 remember. For our present purpose it is useful to 
 observe the author revealing himself, in his preferences 
 and mental habits, almost as clearly in this historical 
 
211 
 
 romance as in Esther Waters and The Lake. It is himself 
 that he portrays when he says, 'It seems to me that 
 afterwards I talked to everybody who would listen to me, 
 Abelard answered ; taking pleasure in the argument for 
 the sake of it, caring very little which side I took, my 
 pleasure being to quicken dead minds, to awaken thought; 
 for the world, it seems to me, is sloughing its skin of 
 centuries very slowly.' And again, 'I think thou art 
 sorry, Heloise, that I am so immodest a man. And if 
 that thought come into thy mind I cannot blame thee for 
 it, for it's often come into mine. Time and again I have 
 tried to check myself, to conform. ... It may be, too, 
 that the time has come for me to make my peace with 
 the world, for one of our oldest proverbs is, that an old 
 monkey pleases nobody. But can we change ourselves ? ' 
 The very voice is heard, the hand seen waving, and you 
 understand how hard it is even for the imaginative mind 
 to be wholly lost in its creation. As clear is the hint of 
 the author in the infrequent coarseness, in the wanton- 
 ness that echoes earlier offences — 'Thou wilt not chide 
 me if I spend part of to-morrow with a certain knight ? 
 she said to me. ... It has fallen out that Malberge has 
 wept naked in my arms, telling me that I must help her 
 to obtain some man who has caught her fancy, reminding 
 me of our long love, her tears flowing on her cheeks.' 
 Who shall say that such a thing has never happened in 
 the twelfth or the twentieth century ? But who shall 
 deny that such a thing has a lamentable attraction for our 
 artist? An early proclivity has looked in yet again and 
 smirched Heloise and Abelard as evilly as it smirched 
 Hail and Farewell. More welcomely characteristic is our 
 author's free indulgence of his fondness for the picaresque, 
 nowhere developed more beautifully than in the long 
 flight of Heloise, Abelard and Madelon from Paris to 
 Tours. The story of that flight draws river-like through 
 eighty pages of this prolonged pastoral, and the note is 
 
212 
 
 repeated in other wanderings and other stories,, to recur 
 last of all with a new solemnity in the final journey and 
 final parting of the lovers in a world where happiness and 
 unhappiness are but the accidents of unresting travel. 
 
 And another habit, the inveterate habit of portraying 
 contemporaries, is surely disclosed in such an outline as 
 that of Sister Angela, with ^ round almost foolish eyes, 
 dragging mouth and drooping chin. In her face was the 
 simplicity of the deer, and not even the nun's habit could 
 hide the gracefulness of her long arms and slender hands. 
 Heloise expected a stupid woman to reveal herself, but an 
 intelligence began to appear — a fitful, disconnected in- 
 telligence that broke into the conversation and then left 
 it as abruptly, putting thoughts into Heloise's mind of 
 animals she had seen at one moment eager to claim 
 human companionship and then, wearying suddenly of it, 
 returning into themselves without apparent reason.' The 
 type is common, but the instance veraciously chosen. It 
 occurs in the scene of the return of Heloise to her old 
 convent, and that, too, is an example of the simple 
 fondness of Moore's mind for a return to old acquaintance ; 
 for the convent of Argenteuil is the convent of Sister 
 Teresa, the inhabitants are almost the same inhabitants, 
 the musical preoccupation is the same. One feature that 
 mars Sister Teresa is happily lacking in the story of 
 Argenteuil — the vulgarity which Evelyn Innes so potently 
 distilled into Sister Teresa. It is nowhere to be found in 
 the later story. 
 
 Moore's old preferences are betrayed again in the 
 general, or generalized, picture of the Middle Ages, 
 which Heloise and Ahelard slowly unfolds. What he sees 
 in that obscure, passionate period is priestly intrigue and 
 a universal sensualism expressed in the traditions of 
 trouv^res and the Courts of Love ; and the least profound 
 of readers will be sure that such simple generalizations 
 are not exhaustive. Candour, however, demands an 
 
213 
 
 exception being remarked, namely, the descent of a 
 religious madness upon the world, described in the 
 apparition of a spurious Jesus to Heloise's child, and the 
 demoralizing frenzy that swept the convent at the same 
 time and preluded its destruction. An enemy hath done 
 this, might well be the cry of a pious churchman of the 
 twelfth or the twentieth century ; for horror, quiet, 
 simple, unbearable, swells the tide of the story and 
 culminates in the disappearance of Heloise's child. Astro- 
 labe. Of Astrolabe it is a joy to speak. His name is 
 historical, but all else in him is pure and high imagination 
 and memory. The absence of children in most of Moore's 
 work will have been noticed by his readers, but Astrolabe 
 is a lovely child in whom the genius of life is radiant. . . . 
 Part of imagination, I repeat, and part of memory has 
 Astrolabe been created. ' I have to tell the reader that 
 he was of an amiable and happy disposition, a docile child, 
 yet a wilful one. . . . Why Nature should have given him 
 
 such witty eyes ' That is not a description of Heloise's 
 
 son, tragically swallowed up in the children's crusade, but 
 of the small George Moore himself; but it describes 
 Astrolabe perfectly. Strange is it that when so many 
 writers of our time have proved how easy it is to write 
 affectedly or absurdly* of children, the writer who has so 
 often been dismissed as affected should almost alone have 
 created the natural and beloved child. 
 
 HSlo'ise and Abelard has been called monotonous, and if 
 that term be meant merely as an equivalent to monotoned, 
 it can be admitted. Save for the troubadour element, of 
 which there is an excess, there is no tediousness, and 
 though the narrative flows, as I have said, like a river 
 wandering slowly through willow-hemmed meads, it flows 
 in an atmosphere of light and space and sun and shadow. 
 Sometimes it darkens, and tragic sadness tosses the waves 
 of the river, as in the meeting of wife and husband after 
 many years' separation and silence. With the suddenness 
 
2U 
 
 and sadness of an apparition Abelard comes, and Heloise, 
 prepared only by her perpetual thoughts and ache, scarce 
 sees him : — 
 
 ^They brought back some small coins every day, 
 and these Heloise was counting when the door of the 
 kitchen opened and a monk crossed the threshold 
 and stood, his eyes fixed upon her. On seeing that 
 she did not recognize him, for he stood against the 
 light, he raised his hood, and the surprise was so 
 great that for a moment she felt like dying, and 
 leaned against the wall gasping, to fall into Abelard's 
 arms at last. Neither could speak, nor were words 
 needed ; it was enough for each to know that each 
 was with the other. So thou hast come at last, broke 
 from her sighing lips.' 
 
 It is painful to read what follows, for the sadness that 
 purifies or destroys great passion is here. 
 
 Moore's aim in writing Heloise and Abelard, so far as, 
 after writing it, he is able to define his aim, was to make 
 a beautiful book. He admits having attempted this 
 before, and curiously instances Evelyn Innes ; but he freely 
 adds that he failed there, and smiles if you cordially agree 
 that he failed. The success now is as plain as was the 
 failure then. His own conception of a beautiful book 
 (the phrase is a poor one) may be judged by his constant 
 preference of Marius the Epicurean as the imaginative 
 masterpiece of our time; and if I do not share this 
 preference quite without hesitation, it is because Heloise 
 and Abelard rivals Pater's success. An imaginative 
 masterpiece cannot be achieved without a mastery of 
 English prose ; and here is Moore's excellence. To 
 recount the various virtues of Marius which are not to be 
 found in Moore's book, would be as foolish as to note the 
 fine qualities of Heloise which are wanting in Pater's 
 philosophical romance. I shall not attempt it, but will 
 only compare what is comparable, and say that Moore's 
 
215 
 
 romance has as surely as Pater's — no, a little more surely 
 — the note of the purest English prose. The striking 
 phrase, the eloquent cry, the prepared effect, are not 
 Moore's ; but his are a thousand passages, or rather his is 
 one prolonged lovely passage breathing the music and 
 reflecting the motion of : ' Grief hushes like a wind and 
 breaks forth again in the mind like a wind ; ' and : — 
 
 ' I am afraid of the forest, Heloise said, and Abelard 
 sought to calm her fears, saying : The forest is wonder- 
 ful. Listen to the silence, for silence in the forest 
 is different from any other. But the forest is never 
 silent, Heloise interposed ; it is always mumbling to 
 itself. I am afraid. Shall we go back to Madelon, 
 he asked, or sit here among the ferns.'' And in 
 answer to her question if he were afraid, he answered 
 that he was not, which was barely the truth, for with 
 the decline of the light the forest seemed to have 
 put off its casual associations with man and to have 
 returned to itself, a strange, remote self, nearer to 
 beasts than to man. We are all aliens to the forest, 
 he said, all save charcoal-burners and wolf-hunters.* 
 
 Pleasant is it to be able to record such a satisfaction as 
 Heloise and Abelard yields. The book is the work of a 
 man of mature, unageing mind. Sometimes, as he will 
 acknowledge, he is touched by the fear that his powers 
 as an imaginative artist are declining, for that decline 
 must come, and time brings it nearer. One day age, 
 that has approached as yet with such friendly gentle- 
 ness, will step more swiftly, chilling the activity of his 
 mind and greying every bright hue ; and, worst of all, 
 he may not know it except by the report of others, 
 which he will be both ready and reluctant to believe. 
 I am glad that such a report is not mine. That it has 
 been sounded by certain reviewers is due, I am willing 
 to suppose, to the alleged necessity of prompt notice 
 being given to a book which can only be valued truly 
 if it is valued reflectively, and pondered over with the 
 
216 
 
 familiarity that deepens the satisfaction of an exquisite 
 water-colour at which we look so often for what we know 
 we shall find. Heldise and Abe lard is a picture hung in 
 the mind ; — time may establish or diminish its beauty, 
 and as yet it would be stupid to prophesy; but the 
 immediate quickening of the spirit which it provokes is 
 like the quickening that can be remembered in those 
 first apprehensions of things which have grown into 
 permanent delights. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 A WANDERING MIND 
 
Were I to live againe it should be as I have already- 
 lived. I neither deplore what is past, nor dread 
 what is to come ; and if I be not deceived, the in- 
 ward parts have neerly resembled the outward. . . . 
 Each thing hath beene carried in season. I have 
 seen the leaves, the blossomes, and the fruit. — 
 Montaigine. 
 
The years have added a little fulness to the face, but the 
 face is still that of the small boy who looks at you from 
 the new edition of Memoirs of My Dead Life and upon 
 whom his thoughts fall so fondly now. Across the deeps 
 and shallows of six decades he bends towards the early 
 slim figure with the long nose and witty eyes, pleased 
 that a resemblance to his present looks should appear, 
 and teasing himself with speculations upon the equal 
 constancy of intellectual and spiritual characters. It is 
 no more wonderful that the visible and invisible charac- 
 ters should persist than that they should vanish, but the 
 persistence gives room for a complacency which is wholly 
 amiable. 
 
 But there is change in likeness. The pleasant mildness 
 of the child's face may be found in the man's, just as the 
 fall of the child's hair is followed sixty years after in the 
 fall of the white hair ; but the eye changes, the mouth 
 moves, the face in a moment becomes other than it was. 
 Often the look is broad, mild, contented ; the cheeks droop 
 in their fulness, the mouth hangs a little open, the harsh- 
 ness of the voice is dulled, the hand weaves a flowing 
 pattern, and there is a general air of softness and ease. 
 Swiftly falls the change at the challenge of a word, a 
 memory; the eye gleams bright, though the brows be 
 but faintly gathered ; the lines in the face deepen, the 
 lower lip hangs heavy beneath the white upper lip, the 
 voice at once is strident — the mildness of the sheep is 
 lost in the sharpness of the hound, alert to defend and 
 attack. The note of expostulation is frequent as the voice 
 rises and flows, belying the assertion of indifference that 
 he will make, for instance, if his thought wanders to such 
 injuries as the banning of his novels by the foolish 
 
 219 
 
220 
 
 libraries; but if he returns to his story or speaks, as he 
 will do for an eloquent hour, of his own work achieved 
 or planned, or of Shelley or Pater, his face grows serene 
 again and the whole man sits at ease. 
 
 The small-boned, fleshly body, sunken into perfect 
 immobility, fills completely the low chair, but the head 
 and eyes are never still. He loves to talk of poetry, of 
 Poems and Ballads and Morris's early work, to which he 
 returns in a renewing ecstasy; but save in a French 
 exercise, he is no longer tempted to write verse. He 
 has no subject for poetry, and to please him poetry must 
 be objective ; the introspection of modern lyrical poets 
 gives him no delight — it is for subject and story that 
 he cries. Milton, for all his epical narration, does not 
 greatly attract him, although the superbness of style is 
 beyond dispute ; indeed, he hates such vast and isolated 
 types as Beelzebub, and cannot endure the mediaeval 
 conception of a boiling hell, which Milton so simply 
 admitted. But the beautiful pastoral of Adam and Eve 
 in the Garden has a persistent charm. That charm is 
 wanting when he reads Keats, transpiring only through 
 the Miltonic verse of Hyperion : — Shelley, in fact, seems 
 to have spoiled him for Keats. Beautiful to him, like 
 a spring bubbling from a cool and sunny hill, is Shelley's 
 Hymn to Pan. Even in translation the poet's gift is 
 magical, and the whole of Shelley remains readable, 
 save A Vision of the Sea ; and his fondness does not 
 seem to Moore inconsistent with his demand that poetry 
 should be objective, Epipsyckidion itself, and the Stanzas 
 Written in Dejection j for all their lyrical isolation, being 
 'about' something other than the personal experience 
 of the poet. Scarce anything later than Morris or 
 Meredith can touch his affections, and even Morris fails 
 in a critical test, for he tried too many things. For 
 Rossetti he can find no fondness hidden anywhere, not 
 even in the memories of youth, his poetry seeming too 
 
221 
 
 artificial and wanting the sweetness of Christina's. The 
 early English lyric pleases him by its innocence and 
 religious gaiety, and happy absence of introspection. 
 Innocence always touches an innocence within him. 
 
 His indifference to recent poets, to the most honoured 
 among them, is complete and undisguised. Nor is his 
 admiration of contemporary prose writers very much 
 more liberal. Of none is his love so warm and prompt 
 as for a few earlier authors : none competes with Landor 
 for his affection, no other approaches Pater. Moore is not 
 a great reader but he remembers what he reads, and is 
 loyal to his early intellectual loves in spite of scores of 
 years flowing by. He is no less loyal to his prejudices, 
 and the reader of Avowals will scarcely want an assurance 
 that the opinions so exquisitely enlarged there, the sugges- 
 tions so adroitly insinuated, the judgments so weightily 
 announced, are not transient shadows of a shifting mind, 
 but the last expression of an aesthetic and moral attitude 
 which has deepened within him through seventy years 
 of change. Speak of Landor, and he rises from his chair, 
 opens a volume of the Imaginary Conversations and, at the 
 invitation of a word or look, reads The Maid of Orleans and 
 Agnes Sorel or Bossuet and the Duchess de Foidanges : — slowly, 
 clearly, and with something of a child's manner of reading 
 straightforwardly to a listener. He has reflected a little 
 sharply upon Stevenson — the preface to Lewis Seymour 
 modifies the earlier derogation — but he will no longer 
 deplore — nay, will rather defend — Stevenson's English, 
 reserving his dislike for the stories. He thinks himself 
 perhaps better at stories than Stevenson, but worse at 
 the critical article ; forgetting Stevenson's last story on 
 the one hand, and Avowals on the other. And he forgets, 
 too, that Stevenson, a year or two his elder, died while 
 as yet Esther Waters was the latest and best of his own 
 books; and a comparison between these bright disso- 
 ciates in 1894 would have led to another conclusion 
 
222 
 
 than is inevitable now. . . . Nevertheless our author, 
 although preoccupied vi^ith his own work, is very far 
 from being obstinately satisfied with it. There is a 
 curious petty strife in him of the childlike and the 
 masculine. No man depends more entirely upon his 
 instinct, yet no man mistrusts it more. He may seem 
 arrogant when he speaks of another, but when his own 
 art is touched he is strangely pliable and submissive ; and 
 hence you become wary and reluctant to make even a 
 minute suggestion, lest he too hastily adopt it. 
 
 Sometimes he is guilty of a pleasant excess of praise — 
 as when he says of Stevenson, again, that he possessed 
 the very model of a perfect style of a kind. Travels with a 
 Donkey being as absolute an achievement in prose as such 
 a book can be ; but a qualification will follow and you 
 perceive him in two minds about the unhappily lost artist. 
 Hard on the heels of the amateur emigrant comes Mr. 
 Max Beerbohm, whose writing seems to Moore as good as 
 Lamb's. That perfection of small prose, which is like the 
 rarest courtesy of language, pleases him by its lightness and 
 brightness. A kind and queer irrelevance is heard when 
 he says that he would not care to leave Max on ' Servants ' 
 lying about in his house, for fear that if a servant read in 
 it she might think it superior and inconsiderate. ... I 
 have a wandering mind, he says, and caprice is often at 
 his elbow, breathing new phrases for old prejudices, as 
 it is present in the conversation of many less exacting 
 readers ; but he burns not the faintest pinch of incense to 
 convention, and prefers his own thoughts to the thoughts 
 of others. Perhaps it is more correct to say that when he 
 talks of writers and the art of writing he forgets all but 
 his own thoughts, and is simply unaware of conventional 
 appreciations. 
 
 The case is altered when he speaks of men and women, 
 for he will sometimes show an absurdly youthful fondness 
 for thrusting at conventions. Yet even then he shocks 
 
223 
 
 not only because he loves to watch the vexed or chill 
 stare, but also as a protest against what is vaguely 
 called the provincial, the philistine, the suburban, the 
 mechanical. He would fain see the world saved (in the 
 spirit of the Confessions of 1888) not from its sins but from 
 its narrow virtues, its coldness, its formalism; he would 
 fain see men going on a pilgrimage again, not to Rome 
 but Touraine, or wandering on to no goal but seeking 
 only the joy of wandering. Humour touches his lips 
 with an odd smile, and the instinct for exaggeration 
 seizes at times upon his voice and gestures, as when he 
 is enraged at an ineffably bad cast for a play — perhaps 
 his own. 'You ask me what I think?' he cries. 'My 
 dear friend, if you came to dine with me and I gave you 
 a lemon, you would probably eat it for politeness ; you 
 might even eat a second lemon ; but if I gave you a third, 
 a fourth, a fifth lemon, and nothing else, you would get 
 up after the fifth lemon and rush out of the house, as I'm 
 rushing out of your theatre.' He will tell this to one and 
 another with the growing relish of a repeated revenge. . . . 
 Seldom is a man isolated equally by reason of his virtues 
 and his faults ; but this is Moore's fate, or fond choice. 
 Alone of the present generation he indulges himself in 
 the humour of the scandalous, and presents to the amused 
 but critical eyes of nineteen-twenty-two the spectacle of 
 an utterly devoted artist ridden at times by a disreputable, 
 outmoded hag misnamed wit, misnamed freedom. 
 
 ' At my back I always hear 
 Time's winged chariot hurrying near ' 
 
 And Time will unseat her at length, and leave her 
 withered in the dust ; but I lament that the poor victory 
 should be reserved to Time. Moore bears the dignity 
 of his art in his bosom, yet cannot see how oddly it is 
 overborne now and again by the discreditable hag. That 
 serene dignity, happily, survives, and when all is said of 
 
224 
 
 these brief, unadvised subordinations, the finer spirit is 
 found unweakened. It is hardly a moral question that 
 is touched here. Moore has assuredly a quick concern 
 with that universal embarrassment and universal stimu- 
 lus, morality, yet not with morality as part of the 
 social order, but as a personal and restricted problem. 
 The great artist and Don Juan, he declared in an early 
 book, are antagonistic. In his own work there is not the 
 least clinging wisp of the sociological obsession which 
 darkens over vast tracts of modern prose fiction ; but 
 there is a very sharp sense of the questions that beset a 
 man and a woman in their relations with one another. 
 To put it loosely, his morality is not philosophical, nor 
 even falsely philosophical, but strictly experimental. It 
 is not so much that he hates abstractions, as that he 
 cannot breathe the air of abstractions, needing a denser 
 air for his vigorous mental constitution. 
 
 Apart from the deliberate and the innocent presentation 
 of himself in a long list of books it is proper to ask. What 
 has George Moore given to English literature ? Nineteen- 
 fifty will disregard the judgment of nineteen- twenty-two, 
 and a prophecy is apt to prove a jest; and hence I will 
 not presume to anticipate wiser opinions or the stealthy 
 fingering of decay, nor will I attempt a comparison of 
 Moore's work with that of eminent contemporaries. But 
 the question of his own gift is irresistible. 
 
 First of all, then, he has given form to the English 
 novel, Esther Waters (to name no other of his novels) 
 making a considerable claim to recognition on this score. 
 I do not speak of his method, for that is not new ; he 
 follows a traditional way, using a single thread and never 
 attempting the complexities of alien modes. The method 
 of Henry James, for instance, which the common terms 
 of saturation and suffusion so clearly suggest, is not for 
 Moore; neither does he attempt methods so impossible 
 
225 
 
 for his genius as those of The Brothers Karamazov and 
 Mort de Quelquun. It is scarcely a virtue that he refrains 
 from the attempt, for the psychology of his novels is 
 so simple and single-visioned as to show that such 
 intricacies of apprehension are for him repellent as 
 well as impossible. His own method gains greatly from 
 the care with which he has developed a native sense 
 of form. His contempt for others' work, considered 
 under this aspect, is expressed in Avowals and is too 
 heedless in its scope ; and were his mind free to relish 
 another artist's imaginations, he would have found an 
 exception in The Return of the Native, to choose but 
 one of several examples. Nevertheless his charge that 
 English fiction is careless in shape remains substantially 
 true, and so far as the contemporary novel has been 
 touched by any beauty of form, it may be said that 
 Esther Waters has been the model. It would be too 
 exacting to ask that a novel should be as rigidly ordered 
 as a sonnet, but we may ask that, like the verse ot 
 Paradise Lost, it should possess without quite concealing 
 a shape of its own creation. The lesson has been learned 
 by some writers, perhaps by all who are capable of learn- 
 ing, that order and form are not a hindrance to the literary 
 artist, any more than straight lines to an architect. And 
 with this lesson a yet simpler one is intertwined — that 
 neither character alone nor incident alone is sufficient for 
 the presentation of human life in an imaginative shape. 
 Moore has discovered these trite notions for himself, for 
 all that he knows of his own task is self-taught ; and thus, 
 while the chief influence upon current prose fiction may 
 be that of Henry James or Mr. Hardy, the art of Moore's 
 best books is scarcely less conspicuous as an example, or 
 a reproach. 
 
 Next, he has so dexterously modified an old form as to 
 turn it virtually into a new one in his autobiographical 
 writings ; making grave things light, using mockery and 
 Q 
 
226 
 
 malice for those intellectual revenges which the very 
 kindest of us condone, and arming his prejudices with 
 such satire as the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 
 dearly loved to sharpen. In the decline of brush and 
 pencil, he has redeemed portraiture from gentleness and 
 made butchery a pleasure. The art of caricature is not a 
 Christian exercise, and Hail and Farewell may be reckoned 
 by gentle hearts as a breach in the defences of society ; 
 but the difficulty of praising it, if that difficulty exists, is 
 merely a contemporary one, and a later generation may 
 very readily pardon offences which it does not feel, and be 
 thankful for the illumination of figures which, but for this 
 maliciously witty light, had been perhaps quite forgotten. 
 The reminiscent narrative has been of service to our subject 
 in another way, for he has always been interested in 
 persons more than in ideas, and in men more than in 
 women ; hence his thoughts have been most brightly 
 stimulated by the friction of opposing personalities. This 
 is but to say that he is an emotional artist, whose intellect 
 is the instrument of fondness and animosities ; and 
 wanting that friction — to which he will for a while expose 
 himself readily enough — he is lethargic and another man 
 than the author of Avowals. . . . The art of writing cannot 
 be taught, least of all an innovating refinement of art such 
 as the musing, acute reminiscence of the autobiography, 
 and I do not refer to Moore's achievement now except to 
 note it as his own and commend it to the haunted eyes of 
 despair. 
 
 But to say all this is perhaps to speak superfluously, 
 since it is implied in whatever remains to be said concern- 
 ing George Moore's prose. I have already referred in 
 so many places in this book to the qualities of that 
 prose, from its first crudities to its slowly unfolding 
 ease, its maturity of flower, fruit and shade ; and 
 listening to his prose and remembering that of his con- 
 temporaries, a prime distinction is observed — that Moore's 
 
227 
 
 is written from and for the ear, while the prose of most 
 others is written from the eye. The thing heard rather 
 than the thing seen is our author's prompter, and hence 
 his rhythm is the most beautiful thing in contemporary 
 English. And without extravagance, surely, one might 
 add that it is not alone the heard melody, but the sweeter 
 unheard melody — voice of a bodiless bird, breath of an 
 immaterial landscape — that steals out of the intricate 
 simplicities and shallows of his style. 
 
 Comparison with other writers is a disagreeable thing to 
 attempt, although it would serve to mark George Moore's 
 place a little more sharply. It is a place which scarcely 
 more than one or two contemporaries can dispute with 
 him. Mr. Conrad suffers from the penalty which is laid on 
 a writer who uses another tongue than his own, for his 
 genius, that has led him into a romantic world dominated 
 by an august morality, looming huge and dark as Arabian 
 djinn over a bewildered pilgrim, cannot teach him the 
 simplicities of the English language, or win that heritage 
 which childhood alone receives. Henry James and Mr. 
 Hardy, Mr. Kipling and Mr. Hudson are masters of an 
 instrument how diversely played, following what clamorous 
 or whispered thought ! Comparison between them, or 
 between them and George Moore, would yield small 
 pleasure now ; and thus I am compelled to look at 
 random and ask whether, for example, this passage 
 which a leading critical journal lately crowned with its 
 praise is worthy of comparison with the style of Hail and 
 Farewell, The Brook Kerith and Avowals. The three books 
 are named because the prose of one is not the prose of the 
 others — the dreamlike melody of The Brook Kerith being 
 unheard in Avowals, and the graver phrasing of Avowals 
 adding power to the light of the trilogy. 
 
 The following is the passage praised by The Times : — 
 
 * Much thought has been expended, during the war 
 and since, on the fittest way of honouring the dead. 
 
228 
 
 They will not come back, and we, who remember 
 them and think of them, like to believe that they 
 will always be remembered. But let us be just to 
 them. They did not ask, when they gave their lives, 
 that their memories should be preserved. There 
 have been nations (there are some to-day) who make 
 divinities of fame and glory. That has never been 
 the habit of the English people. Our dead were 
 content to save England. If they could see Oxford as 
 Oxford is to-day, with the war won, they would be 
 pleased with that living memorial. Even if they had 
 failed to save England they well knew (though no 
 one can explain it) that their sacrifice had an absolute 
 value, and was not made in vain. We grope for some 
 sign or token of them, and here and there, far away 
 from the graves where they lie, we find it. Their 
 virtue, which was a live thing, cannot be engraved on 
 stone or printed in a book, but it still is here, to be 
 sought for among other live things. The words Courage 
 and Duty — or rather, the ideas of courage and duty, 
 for Englishmen use the words very sparingly — are 
 enriched by a great bequest. Fellowship and friend- 
 ship mean more to-day than they meant before the 
 war. The air that children breathe, even when they 
 are at play, comes to them tonic, from the heights. 
 These things are the touch of live spirits, present or 
 absent.' 
 
 The use of certain unwelcome words, the staccato 
 sentences, the absence of rhythm, the faintness of the 
 pulse, are plain faults on a first reading and harassing if 
 another reading is endured. I do not urge that Moore's 
 prose is the sole kind of good prose, and that other subjects 
 than his cannot be presented save in his later, beautiful 
 manner; but to contrast the paragraph just cited with 
 almost any page in those of his books to which I have just 
 referred, is to be aware of such a contrast as that of pump 
 and waterfall. 
 
 The price paid by the artist for his art is the concern ot 
 
229 
 
 himself alone. I have heard it objected, in a specious 
 antinomy, that it is better to live a full life than to write a 
 fine book ; and without pursuing the subtleties of this 
 misconception, which was applied by the misconceiver to 
 George Moore himself, it is worth while to make a plain 
 remark upon it. The objection in the present case was 
 expressed to the effect that the sacrifice of a man's personal 
 life for the sake of his art is to be deplored, and that an 
 artist who prefers, for example, isolation to marriage, 
 so that he may make his calling and election sure, is 
 choosing amiss. ' Choose, rather, a full life ! ' How much 
 of conscious choice and how much of unconscious tendency 
 is involved in this isolation I have no means or anxiety to 
 discover ; but the fallacy of the suggestion is clear, for is 
 not the imaginative life a full life.? And is there a full 
 life which is not imaginative .'* Pity that Providence forbade 
 the exercise of one joy except by the forfeit of another ! 
 To live ten lives a day, and to live again the intimate 
 personal life and tangled social life of marriage, is a 
 problem set for some men in all ages ; the Church has 
 solved it in one way and again in another, and the creative 
 spirit that inhabits a man here and there urges him into a 
 solution or evasion of the same kind. I cannot think it a 
 narrow, waning life that is lived in the mind and expressed 
 in stone, melody, line or word. Born of the imagination 
 and inheriting the ages, the expressive creation fulfils the 
 dream of a prolonged consciousness, the instinct of main- 
 taining in another the life that fades in one's fiery brain. 
 It becomes itself an instrument and a symbol — an in- 
 strument of the mind's desire, a symbol of the whole 
 range of human possibility. 
 
 And more simply, the justification — if the term be not 
 an impertinence — is found in that for which the imagined 
 sacrifice is made. Of this it is permissible for the specula- 
 tive critic to speak, but of the artist's private satisfaction 
 the artist alone can speak. Instead, however, of asking 
 
230 
 
 George Moore to plead for himself, it is more decent to 
 listen to his contemporary, Samuel Butler : — 
 
 ' The world resolves itself into two great classes — 
 those who hold that honour after death is better 
 worth having than any honour a man can get and 
 know anything about, and those who doubt this ; to 
 my mind, those who hold it, and hold it firmly, are 
 the only people worth thinking about. . . . 
 
 * As for my own position, if I say the things I want 
 to say without troubling myself about the public, 
 why should I grumble at the public for not troubling 
 about me ? ' 
 
 Contradictions flourish in the bosom of George Moore, 
 and his indifference has not always been perfect ; but 
 beneath the superficial querulity there is a steadier disdain, 
 and beneath the disdain a serene pride, and beneath all a 
 humble human thankfulness that he has been called to 
 make something which may endure for a moment in a 
 fleeting and sensitive world. 
 
GEORGE MOORE 
 
 A BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 [1878-1921] 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY DANIELSON 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 The present bibliography of the first editions of the 
 writings of Mr. George Moore has been compiled with 
 the object of satisfying the needs of the collector. At 
 the same time it presents a chronological survey of Mr. 
 George Moore's literary activities in volume form from 
 1878 to 1921. 
 
 Those interested in the values of the works herein 
 mentioned will find, at the end of the bibliography, this 
 aspect touched upon. 
 
 I must express my indebtedness to Sir Lucas King for 
 his generosity in lending me his copy of Martin Luther ; 
 and my thanks are also due to Mr. T. Werner Laurie for 
 his kindness in allowing me to inspect many volumes in 
 his collection. 
 
 H. D. 
 
 March llth, 1922. 
 
(1) 
 
 Flowers of Passion : 1878 
 
 Flowers of Passion. | [French rule] \ By | George Moore. | 
 [French rule] \ London : | Provost & Co., 36, Henrietta 
 Street, | Covent Garden. | [J line] \ 1878. 
 
 Pott 4to ; pp. iv + 116, consisting of Title-page, as above 
 (verso blank), pp. [1, 11] j Table of Contents., pp. [ill, 
 iv (incorrectly paged ii) ] ; Dedication (verso blank), 
 pp. [1, 2]; Text, pp. [3J-114. Pp. [115, 116] are 
 occupied by advertisements of Provost S^ Co.'s \ Recent 
 Poetical Works. There is an Errata slip (4 lines with 
 heading) pasted between the Title-page and Table of 
 Contents. There is no printer's imprint. 
 
 Issued in black cloth, lettered up the back in gilt as 
 follows : Flowers of Passion In centre of front cover. 
 In gilt, skull and cross-bones with leaves and lyre with 
 broken strings and leaves. Back cover blank. Gilt 
 edges. Cream end-papers. (Some copies were Issued 
 with plain edges.) 
 
 (2) 
 
 Martin Luther : 1879 
 
 Martin Luther : | A Tragedy, | In Five Acts. | By | 
 George Moore, | Author of " Flowers of Passion," | 
 and I Bernard Lopez, | Collaborateur de | Scribe, Mery, 
 Auguste I Lefranc, Theophile Gautier, | Alexandre 
 Dumas pere, Victor | Sejour, Alboize, Charles Des- 
 noyer, | Gerard de Nerval, Dupenty, Laurencin, | 
 Grange, Hippolyte Cogniard, Lelarge, | Delacour, 
 Varin, | Charles Narrey, Rochefort | pere, Dumanoir, 
 
236 
 
 Clairville et Saint-Georges. | [A line] \ London : 
 Remington and Co., | 5, Arundel Street, Strand, W.C. | 
 [A line] I 1879. | [All Rights Reserved.] 
 
 Crown octavo; pp. xii4- 180, consisting of a Leaf (not 
 reckoned in pagination) with blank recto, and the 
 following note, printed within a thin one-line border, 
 in centre of verso : [a fist] Managers desirous of 
 securing the Acting \ Rights of this Play should apply to 
 Messrs. \ Remington ^ Co., who have full powers to | 
 represent the Aidhors in relation thereto.; Title-page, as 
 above (verso blank), pp. [i, ii] ; Quotation : " Si autem 
 de veritate scandalum sumitur, utilius permittitur | nasei 
 scandalum, quam Veritas relinquatur." | Saint Gregory the 
 Great. | (Taken from the 17th Century Edition of the \ 
 " Bihliotheque [sic] Nationale,'' p. 1225, Vol. I.) (verso 
 blank), pp. [iii, iv] ; Dramatis Personce., p. [v] ; Aidhors' 
 Note., p. [vi]. Sonnet Dedicace \ a \ Algernon Charles 
 Swinburne. | [Sonnet] | Paris, Janvier, 1879. George 
 Moore., p. [vii] ; Ode Dedicace | a \ Algernon Charles 
 Swinburne, [at end of Ode: Paris, Janvier, 1879. 
 Bernard Lopez.], pp. [viii]-x ; Preface, (consisting of 
 Eighteen Letters, ten of which are from George 
 Moore to Bernard Lopez, and the other eight from 
 Bernard Lopez to George Moore, written between 
 May 1876 and December 1878), pp. [l]-38; Text, 
 pp. [39]-179 ; p. [180] blank. At foot of p. 179 is 
 the following printers' imprint : [a line] | Printed by 
 Remington ^ Co., 5, Arundel Street, Strand, W.C. 
 Signatures : [a] (2 leaves) ; [b] (4 leaves) ; b — m 
 in eights ; n (2 leaves). The sheets are wire stitched. 
 
 Issued in red bevelled cloth, lettered across the back 
 in gilt as follows : Martin \ Luther \ A Tragedy \ [a 
 line] I George | Moore \ and \ Beimardo [sic] | Lopez | 
 Remington, with conventional gilt decoration and two 
 lines in black at top and bottom ; and across front 
 cover in gilt, within black borders, as follows : Martin 
 Luther \ A Tragedy, with conventional designs in 
 black at top and bottom. On back cover, same 
 designs and borders as on front cover, in black. All 
 
237 
 
 edges cut and painted red. Greenish-blue end- 
 papers. There is a paper binders' label pasted on 
 inside back cover, lettered as follows : Bound hy | 
 Bum I Sf Co 
 
 (3) 
 
 Pagan Poems : 1881 
 
 Pagan Poems. | By | George Moore. | London : | New- 
 man and Co., | 43, Hart Street, Bloomsbury, W.C. | 
 [A line] | mdccclxxxi. | (followed by initials of the 
 author in ink " G. M^ with very small flourish.) 
 
 Crown octavo; pp. iv -}- 164, consisting of Title-page, as 
 
 above (verso blank), pp. [i, ii] ; Table of Contents, pp. 
 
 [iii], iv; Text, pp. [1]-164. There is no printer's 
 
 imprint. 
 Issued in blue cloth, lettered across the back in gilt. 
 
 The book usually occurs with the title-page torn out. 
 
 (4) 
 
 A Modern Lover: 1883 
 
 A Modem Lover. | By | George Moore. | In Three 
 Volumes. | Vol. I. [Vol. //.] [Vol III.] \ London: 
 Tinsley Brothers, 8, Catherine Street, Strand. | 1883. 
 
 3 Vols., Crown 8vo 
 
 Vol. I, pp. iv -\- 256, consisting of Title-page, as above 
 (with printers' imprint in centre of verso as follows : 
 Printed hy | Kelly 4" Co., Printers , [sic] Gate Street, 
 Lincoln's Inn Field ; [sic] | and Kingston-on-Thames.), 
 pp. [i, ii] ; Table of Contents (verso blank), pp. [iii, iv] ; 
 Text, pp. [l]-252 ; pp. [253-256] blank. 
 
 Vol. II, pp. iv + 240, consisting of Title-page, as above 
 (with printers' imprint in centre of verso as follows : 
 Printed by | Kelly and Co., Printers, Gate Street, Lincoln's 
 Inn Fields ; \ and Kingston-on-Thames.), pp. [i, ii] ; 
 Table of Contents (verso blank), pp. [iii, iv] ; Text, pp. 
 [l]-239 ; p. [240] blank. 
 
238 
 
 Vol. Ill, pp. iv + 212, consisting of Title-page, as above 
 (with printers' imprint in centre of verso as follows : 
 Printed by | Kelly and Co., Printers , Gate Street, Lincoln s 
 Inn Fields ; \ and Kingston-on-Thames. \ pp. [i, ii] ; 
 Table of Contents (verso blank), pp. [iii, iv] ; Text, pp. 
 [lJ-210; pp. [211, 212] blank. Inserted between 
 pp. 210 and [211] is a 32-page numbered list (un- 
 dated) of Tinsley Brothers' \ Catalogue of Publications. 
 (p. [32] blank). 
 
 Issued in light blue cloth, lettered across the back in 
 gilt as follows : A \ Modem \ Lover \ [a line] Fol. L 
 [Vol. II.] [Vol. III.] I George Moore \ Tinsley Bros. ; 
 and lettered (diagonally) across the front in black as 
 follows : 188S \ A Modern Lover \ George Moore Back 
 cover blank. Top edges unopened, fore and lower 
 edges trimmed. Cream end-papers. 
 
 (5) y 
 
 A Mummer's Wife: 1885 
 
 Vizetelly's One- Volume Novels. | \A line] \ III. | A 
 Mummer's Wife. | By George Moore, | Author of " A 
 Modern Lover," | [Publishers'* device] \ London : | Vize- 
 telly & Co., 42, Catherine Street, Strand. | 1885. 
 
 Crown 8vo ; pp. 440, consisting of Blank page, p. [1] ; 
 List of Vizetellys One-Volume Novels, printed within 
 a thin one-line border, p. [2] ; Half-title, Vizetellys 
 One - Volume Novels. | [a line] | ///. | A Mummer s 
 Wife. I By George Moore, (verso blank), pp. [[3, 4] ; 
 Title-page, as above (with printers' imprint in centre 
 of verso as follows : London : | Printed by J. S. Virtue 
 and Co., Limited, | City Road.), pp. [5, 6] ; Dedication : 
 To my friend, | James Davis, | / dedicate this book, in 
 acknowledgment of a \ literary debt, (verso blank), pp. 
 [7, 8] ; Quotation : " Change the surroundings in which 
 man lives, and, in two or three \ generations, you will have 
 changed his physical constitution, his habits | of life, and 
 a goodly number of his ideas." — Victor Duruy, L Introduc- 
 tion I Generale d, VHistoire de France, (verso blank), pp. 
 
239 
 
 [9, 10]; Text, pp. [ll]-438; p. [439] is occupied by 
 a list of Vizetellys Popular French Novels. ; p. [440] is 
 occupied by a list of Gahoriaus Sensational Novels. 
 Printers' imprint at foot of p. 438 as follows : [a line] | 
 Printed hy /. S. Virtue and Co., Limited , City Road, 
 London. At end of volume there is a 20-page 
 numbered illustrated catalogue of Vizetellys Sf Co.'s 
 New Books, I and New Editions, dated September, 188Jf. 
 The title-page is a cancel-leaf. 
 Issued in light brown cloth, lettered across the back in 
 gilt as follows : A \ Mummer s \ Wife | [a line] | 
 George \ Moore \ Vizetelly Sf Co with decoration in 
 cherry at top and bottom ; and on front cover in 
 cherry as follows : [ornament in gilt] | A Mummer s 
 Wife I [ornamental line in gilt] | George Moore. 
 [ornament in gilt], with decoration in cherry at top 
 and bottom. In centre of back cover, publishers' 
 device in cherry. All edges cut. Light grey end- 
 papers. 
 
 In some copies a small printed oblong slip was inserted 
 between pp. [2] and [3], bearing the following note : 
 Notice. I This book has been placed in the Index Expurga- 
 torius I of the " Select " Circulating Libraries of Messrs. 
 Mudie and \ W. H. Smith Sf Son. This slip was inserted 
 after the book had been put into circulation. 
 
 (6) 
 
 Literature at Nurse: 1885 
 
 Price Threepence | [A line] \ Literature | at Nurse | 
 or I Circulating Morals | By George Moore | Author 
 of "A Mummer's Wife,'' "A Modern Lover,'' etc. | 
 "They stand there. Respectable; and — what more? 
 Dumb idols ; with a skin | of delusively-painted wax- 
 work, inwardly empty, or full of rags and bran. • . . | 
 Such bounties, in this as in infinitely deeper matters, 
 does Respectability shower | down on us. Sad are thy 
 doings, O Gig; sadder than those of Juggernaut's 
 
240 
 
 Car : | that, with hugh wheel, suddenly crushes asunder 
 the bodies of men ; thou in thy | light-bobbing Long- 
 acre springs, gradually winnowest away their souls ! " | 
 [A row of seven fullpoints] \ "One day the Mudie 
 mountain, which seemed to stand strong like the other 
 rock I mountains, gave suddenly, as the icebergs do, a 
 loud-sounding crack ; suddenly, | with hugh clanguor, 
 shivered itself into ice dust ; and sank, carrying much 
 along I with it." — Carlyle's Essays. | London | Vizetelly 
 & Co., 42 Catherine Street, Strand | 1885 
 
 Demy 8vo ; pp. 24, consisting of Title-page, as above 
 (with an advertisement of a Ne7V and Cheaper Edition, 
 price 3s. 6d. of A Modern Lover. By George Moore. 
 in centre of verso), pp. [1, 2]; Text (beginning with 
 drop heading as follows : Literature at Nurse, \ or | 
 Circtdating Morals. \ [French rule]), pp. [3]-22, with 
 name of the author at end. Pp. [23, 24] are occupied 
 by an announcement of A Mummer s Wife. | A 
 Realistic Novel, in One Vohune. with thirteen Press 
 Notices, and publishers' imprint at end. The run- 
 ning head-line on the left-hand page is the title 
 of the work {Literature at Nurse,) and on the right- 
 hand page the sub-title (or Circulating Morals.), both 
 printed in small capitals, with folio outside. There 
 are no signatures. 
 
 Issued as a 24-page pamphlet without wrappers, sewn 
 with one stitch of thread. All edges cut. The leaves 
 measure 8f by 5 J ins. 
 
 (7) 
 A Drama in Muslin : 1886 
 
 Vizetelly's One- Volume Novels. | [A line'] \ XV. | A 
 Drama in Muslin | A Realistic Novel. | By George 
 Moore, | Author of " A Mummer's Wife," " A Modern 
 Lover,"" etc. | With a Frontispiece from a Drawing 
 by J. E. Blanche. | [Publishers'' device] \ London : | 
 
241 
 
 Vizetelly & Co., 42, Catherine Street, Strand. | 1886. | 
 [The Right of Translation is Reserved.] 
 
 Crown 8vo ; pp. vi + 330, consisting of Half-title, Vize- 
 telly s One-Volume Novels. | [a line] \ XV. \ A Drama 
 in Muslin. | By George Moore, (with list of Vizetelly's 
 One-Volume Novels. \ By English and Foreign Authors 
 of Repute, on verso), pp. [i, ii] ; [Frontispiece : In the 
 Convent Garde?i] ; Title-page, as above (verso blank), 
 pp. [iii, iv] ; [Prefatory Note] (verso blank), pp. 
 [v, vi] ; Text, pp. 1-329 ; p. [330 blank. Printers' 
 imprint at foot of p. 329 as follows : [a line] | Chas. 
 Straker and Sons, Bishopsgate Avenue, London, E.G. ; 
 and Redhill. At end of volume there is a 24-page 
 numbered Illustrated Catalogue of Vizetelly's ^ Go.'s \ 
 New Books, \ and New Editions, dated April, 1886. 
 In the second edition the catalogue is also dated 
 April, 1886, but in the third edition it is dated 
 November, 1885. The frontispiece is printed in blue ; 
 in the second and third editions the frontispiece is 
 printed in black. 
 
 Issued in light blue cloth, lettered across the back in 
 gilt as follows : [two lines] | A \ Drama \ in \ Muslin \ 
 [ornament] | George Moore \ [ornament] | Vizetelly Sf 
 Co. I [two lines], and across the front in navy blue, 
 within a thick one-line border in blind, as follows : 
 Vizetelly s One- Volume Novels. \ A Drama | in Muslin. | 
 By George Moore. \ Author of "A Mummers Wife." 
 In centre of back cover, publishers' monogram in 
 bUnd with thick one-line outer border in blind. Top 
 edges unopened, fore and lower edges trimmed. 
 
 (8) U^ 
 
 A Mere Accident: 1887 
 Vizetell/s One-Volume Novels. | [A line] | XXVI. | A 
 Mere Accident. | By | George Moore, | Author of " A 
 Mummer's Wife," " A Modern Lover,'' " A Drama in 
 Muslin," etc. | [Publishers'' device] | London : | Vizetelly 
 
242 
 
 & Co., 42 Catherine St., Strand. | Brentanos : New 
 York, Washington, and Chicago. | 1887. | [A line] \ 
 (The Right of Translation is reserved.) 
 
 Crown 8vo ; pp. viii -\- 5-284, consisting of advertisement 
 of Vizetellys Half-Crown Series. y p. [i] ; advertisement 
 of The Mermaid Series., p. [ii] ; Half-title, Vizetellys 
 One- Volume Novels. | [a line] | XXVI. | A Mere Acci- 
 dent. I George Moore, (with advertisement and quo- 
 tations from reviews of three of Mr George Moore's 
 Realistic Novels, on verso), pp. [iii, iv] ; Title-page, as 
 above (verso blank), pp. [v, vi] ; Dedicatory Letter 
 To I My Friends at Buckingham, (verso blank), pp. [vii, 
 viii] ; Text, incorrectly beginning p. [5] instead of p. 
 [l]-282 ; p. [283] is occupied by advertisements of 
 Vizetelly S^ Co.' s Latest Publications. \ p. [284] is occupied 
 by advertisements of Nerv One- Volume Novels. Printers' 
 imprint at foot of p. 282 as follows : Turnhull and 
 Spearsj Printers, Edinburgh. At end of volume there 
 is a 32-page numbered Illustrated Catalogue of Vize- 
 telly Sf Co.'s I Ne7v Books, | and New Editions, dated 
 March, 1887. 
 
 Issued in light brown cloth, lettered across the back in 
 gilt as follows : A | Mere \ Accident | [ornament in 
 brown] | George | Moore \ [ornament in brown] | Vize- 
 telly 4* Co with two lines in gilt at top and bottom, 
 and across the front in brown, within a thick one-line 
 border in blind, as follows : Vizetelly s One-Volume 
 Novels. I A Mere \ Accident. | By George Moore, \ Author 
 of " A Mummer s Wife." In centre of back cover, 
 publishers' monogram in blind with thick one-line 
 outer border in blind. Top edges unopened, fore and 
 lower edges cut. Green end-papers. 
 
 (9) 
 
 Parnell and his Island : 1887 
 
 Parnell | and his | Island | By | George Moore | 
 Author of I ['] A Mummer's Wife ' ' Drama in Muslin ' 
 
243 
 
 etc. I London | Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey, & Co. | 
 Paternoster Square | 1887 
 
 Small crown 8vo ; pp. iv -|- 256, consisting of Title- 
 page, as above (with printers* imprint in centre of 
 verso as follows : Piinted hy \ Spottis?voode and Co., 
 New-Street Square \ London), pp. [i, ii] ; Table of 
 Contents (verso blank), pp. [iii, iv] ; Text, pp. [lJ-254:. 
 Pp. [255, 256] are occupied by advertisements of 
 Neiv Six-Shilling Novels. Printers' imprint at foot of 
 p. 254 as follows : Printed hy | Spottis?voode and Co., 
 New-Street Square | London 
 
 Issued in pale yellow printed paper boards, lettered up 
 the back in black as follows : Parnell and his Island 
 The front cover is lettered across in black as follows : 
 Parnell | and his | Island | By | George Moore | [a 
 line] I Half-a-Crown : Cloth, Three-and-Six \ [a line] j 
 London [ Sivan Sonnenschein, Lowrey Sf Co. | Paternoster 
 Square | i88y (enclosed within a double-line border). 
 The back cover is occupied by advertisements of 
 books, with heading as follows : Swan Sonnenschein S^ 
 Co.'s New Political List. All edges cut. White end- 
 papers. Also issued simultaneously in cloth. 
 
 (10) 
 
 Confessions of a Young Man : 1888 
 
 Confessions of a | Young Man. | By | George Moore, | 
 Author of " A Mummer's Wife," " Parnell and His 
 Island," etc., etc. | [Publishers' device] \ London : | 
 Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey & Co., | Paternoster 
 Square. | 1888. 
 
 Crown 8vo ; pp. iv + 360, consisting of Half-title, 
 Confessions of a Young Man. \ George Moore, (verso 
 blank), pp. [i, ii] ; [Etched Portrait of George Moore 
 by William Strang] ; Title-page, as above (verso blank), 
 pp. [iii, iv]; Text, pp. [l]-357; pp. [358-360] blank. 
 There is no printer's imprint. 
 
 Issued in grey cloth, lettered across the back in gilt as 
 
244 
 
 follows ; Confessions \ of a\ Young Man \ By | George 
 Moore | Sonnenschein On front cover, design of a 
 woman with right knee on a chair, holding up her 
 right hand to a gas bracket, and lettered in blue 
 Confessions of a \ Young Man and in gilt George Moore 
 Back cover blank. Top edges unopened, fore and 
 lower edges trimmed. Dark end-papers. 
 
 (11) 
 
 Spring Days : 1888 
 
 Vizetelly s One- Volume Novels. | [A line] \ XXIX. | 
 Spring Days. | A Realistic Novel. | A Prelude to " Don 
 Juan." I By | George Moore, | Author of "A Mum- 
 mer's Wife," " A Modern Lover,''' " A Drama in 
 Muslin,'' I "A Mere Accident," etc. | [Publishers' 
 device] \ London : | Vizetelly & Co., 16 Henrietta 
 Street, | Co vent Garden. | 1888. 
 
 Crown 8vo ; pp. iv -|- 372, consisting of Half-title, 
 Vizetelly s One-Volume Novels. \ [a line] | XXIX. \ 
 Spring Days. | George Moore, (with a list of Mr George 
 Moore^s Realistic Novels., enclosed within a thin one-line 
 border, on verso), pp. [i, ii] ; Title-page, as above 
 (verso blank), pp. [iii, iv] ; Dedication, To | My 
 Friend, \ Fi'ank Harris, (verso blank), pp. [1, 2] ; 
 Preface, pp. [3, 4 (numbered iv)] ; Text, pp. [5]-371 ; 
 p. [372] blank. Printers' imprint at foot of p. 371 as 
 follows : Turnhull and Spears, Printers, Edinburgh. At 
 end of volume there is a 32-page numbered Illus- 
 trated Catalogue of Vizetelly 8^ Co.'s | New Books, \ 
 And New Editions, dated Aprils i888. 
 
 Issued in dull strawberry cloth, lettered across the back 
 in gilt as follows : Spring | Days | A Realistic | Novel | 
 George Moore. \ Vizetelly S^ Co. with two lines in 
 black at top and bottom, and across the front in 
 black as follows : Spring Days | A Realistic Novel | 
 George Moore. In centre of back cover, publishers' 
 monogram in blind. Top and fore-edges unopened. 
 
245 
 
 Green end-papers. Some copies were issued in blue 
 cloth. There are many reissues of the first edition, 
 bound in various cheap cloth bindings. 
 
 (12) 
 
 Mike Fletcher: 1889 
 
 Mike Fletcher. | A Novel. | By | George Moore, | 
 Author of I "A Mummer''s Wife,*" " Confessions of a 
 Young Man,"" etc. | London : | Ward and Downey, | 
 12, York Street, Covent Garden. | 1889. | [All rights 
 reserved.] 
 
 Crown 8vo ; pp. vi + 304, consisting of Half-title, Mike 
 Fletcher (verso blank), pp. [i, ii] ; Title-page, as above 
 (verso blank), pp. [iii, iv] ; Dedication, To | viy Brother 
 Augustus, I in memory of \ many years of mutual aspiration 
 and labour, (verso blank), pp. [v, vi] ; Text, pp. 
 [l]-304. There is no printer's imprint. 
 
 Issued in peacock blue cloth. The front cover is 
 decorated with conventional designs in compartments 
 in light brown and peacock blue, and lettered across 
 in gilt as follows : Mike Fletcher | [a line] | George 
 Moorey in an oblong compartment on plain back- 
 ground. The back is lettered across in gilt, on 
 peacock background, as follows : Mike | Fletcher | [a 
 line] I George | Moore \ Ward <^ Downey, with designs 
 to match the front. In centre of back cover, pub- 
 lishers' monogram in blind. Top and fore-edges 
 unopened, lower edges trimmed. Light grey flowered 
 end-papers. Some copies have an advertisement leaf 
 pasted between the half-title and title-page. 
 
 (13) '^ 
 
 Impressions and Opinions : 1891 
 
 Impressions | and Opinions | By | George Moore | 
 Author of ' A Mummer's Wife ; ' | ' A Modern Lover ; ' 
 * Confessions | of a Young Man,' etc. | [Ornament] | 
 
246 
 
 London | Published by David Nutt | in the Strand | 
 1891 
 
 Small crown 8vo ; pp. viii + 346, consisting of Half- 
 title, Impressions and Opinions (verso blank), pp. 
 [i, ii] ; Title-page, as above (verso blank), pp. [iii, 
 iv] ; [Note] (verso blank), pp. [v, vi] ; Table of Con- 
 tents (verso blank), pp. [vii, viii] ; Text, pp. [l]-346. 
 Printers* imprint at foot of p. 346 as follows : [a line] | 
 Printed by T. and A . Constable, Printers to Her Majesty, | 
 at the Edinburgh University Press. At end of volume 
 there is a 12-page numbered list (undated) of A 
 Selection | from \ David Null's \ List of Publications. 
 printed on smaller paper than the text. 
 
 Issued in green cloth, lettered across the back in 
 gilt as follows : [gilt decoration] | Impressions \ and \ 
 Opinions \ George \ Moore \ [gilt decoration with David 
 Nutt in centre] ; gilt decoration at top and bottom of 
 front cover; back cover blank. Top and fore-edges 
 unopened, lower edges trimmed. White end-papers. 
 
 (14) 
 Vain Fortune: [1892] 
 
 Vain Fortune. | By | George Moore, | Author of "A 
 Mummer's Life [^ic]," " Impressions and Opinions," 
 " Confessions of a | Young Man,'' " A Modern Lover," 
 etc. I With Eleven Illustrations by Maurice Greiffen- 
 hagen. | London : | Henry and Co., | Bouverie Street, 
 E.C. 
 
 Crown 8vo ; pp. Frontispiece + iv -}- 304, consisting 
 of Frontispiece, The Great Critics had each a separate 
 Audience., followed by a leaf of tissue ; Title-page, as 
 above (with printers* imprint at foot of verso as follows : 
 [a line] | Printed by Haze II, Watson, 4* Viney, Ld., 
 London and Aylesbury.), pp. [i, ii] ; p. [iii] is occupied 
 by the following note : The Author has to express his 
 thanks to the Editor \ of the ^'Ladys Pictorial" for his 
 
247 
 
 kind permission to \ reproduce in this volume Mr. Greiffen- 
 hagens illus- \ trations. ; p. [iv] blank ; Text, pp. 
 [lJ-296. The printers' imprint, which appears on the 
 verso of Title-page, is repeated at foot of p. 296. Pp. 
 [297-304] are occupied by advertisements of books 
 published by Henry & Co. The misprint on Title- 
 page, viz. *' A Mummer s Life," is again repeated on 
 p. [303]. 
 
 Issued in dark red cloth, lettered across the back in gilt 
 as follows : Vain \ Fortune \ George \ Moore \ Henri/ Sf 
 C° On front cover there is a thick line border, with 
 thin inner border, in gilt. The same border is re- 
 peated on back cover in blind. All edges cut. Dark 
 navy end-papers. 
 
 The illustrations comprise Frontispiece and four other 
 full-page plates, which face pp. 35, 101, 180, and 293, 
 each protected by a leaf of tissue ; and six vignette 
 illustrations in the text at pp. 84, 106, 174, 202, 264, 
 and 273. There is no list of illustrations. 
 
 (15) 
 
 Vain Fortune : [1892] 
 
 Large Paper Edition 
 
 There was also an edition of 150 copies printed on 
 Large Paper. The collation is the same as the small 
 paper issue, with the addition of a Half-title preceding 
 the frontispiece: Vain Fortune, (with certificate of 
 issue in centre of verso as follows : Only One Hundred 
 and Fifty Copies of this Large Paper Edition \ have 
 been Printed^ of which this is \ No. . . . This large 
 paper edition was advertised as being numbered and 
 signed by the author, but very few copies were so 
 issued. 
 
 Crown 4to; issued in white bevelled cloth, lettered 
 across the back in gilt as follows : Vain | Fortune \ 
 George \ Moore \ Henry Sf Co., and across the front in 
 
248 
 
 gilt as follows : Vain \ Fortune \ George Moore Back 
 cover blank. Top edges unopened, fore-edges uncut 
 and unopened, lower edges uncut. Flowered end- 
 papers. A large number of copies were re-issued 
 in red buckram and published by Messrs. Walter 
 Scott, Ltd. 
 
 (16) ' 
 
 Modern Painting : 1893 
 Modern | Painting | By George Moore | London | 
 Walter Scott, Limited | 24 Warwick Lane | 1893 
 
 Crown 8vo ; pp. vi -\- 256, consisting of Half-title, 
 Modem | Painting (with list of books Bt/ the same Author 
 in centre of verso), pp. [i, ii] ; Title-page, as above 
 (with Note in centre of verso), pp. [iii, iv] ; Table of 
 Contents (verso blank), pp. [v, vi] ; Text, pp. [lJ-248 ; 
 pp. [249-256] are occupied by advertisements of 
 books published by Messrs. Walter Scott, Ltd. At 
 foot of p. 248 is the following printers' imprint: 
 The Walter Scott Press, Newcastle-on-Tyne. At end of 
 volume there is a 16-page unnumbered and undated 
 Catalogue of Books published by Messrs. Walter 
 Scott, Ltd., printed on different paper to that of the 
 text. 
 
 Issued in dark red cloth, lettered across the back in gilt 
 as follows : Modern \ Painting | George Moore \ Walter 
 Scott, Ltd, Both sides blank. Top edges gilt, fore 
 and lower edges cut. Sage-green end-papers. 
 
 (17) 
 
 The Strike at Arlingford: 1893 
 
 The Strike at | Arlingford | Play in Three Acts | By 
 George Moore | London | Walter Scott, Limited | 24 
 Warwick Lane | 1893 
 
 Crown 8vo ; pp. 178, consisting of Half-title, The Strike 
 at I Arlingford. (verso blank), pp. [1, 2] ; Title-page, 
 
249 
 
 as above (verso blank), pp. [3, 4] ; Note (verso blank), 
 pp. [5, 6] ; List of Characters (verso blank), pp. [7, 8] ; 
 Text, pp. [9]-175. Printers' imprint at foot of p. 175 
 as follows : The Walter Scott Press, Nervcastle-on-Tyne. 
 P. [176] blank. Pp. [177, 178] are occupied by 
 advertisements of books by George Moore, published 
 by Walter Scott, Ltd. 
 Issued in dark red cloth, lettered across the back in gilt 
 as follows : The | Strike at | Arlingford \ Play in | 
 Three Acts \ [a line] | George Moore (enclosed within 
 a thin border with scallop-shaped design at top and 
 bottom in gilt) | Walter Scott On front cover a large 
 elongated panelled design enclosed within a two-line 
 border in gilt. Back cover blank. Top edges gilt, 
 fore and lower edges cut. Sage-green end-papers. 
 
 (18) ■^ 
 
 Esther Waters : 1894 
 
 Esther Waters | A Novel | By | George Moore | 
 London | Walter Scott, Ltd. | 24 Warwick Lane, 
 Paternoster Row | 1894 
 
 Crown Svo ; pp. vi^- 380, consisting of Blank page, p. [i] ; 
 p. [ii] is occupied by a list of six books By the same 
 Author; Title-page, as above (verso blank), pp. [iii, 
 iv]; Dedication, To my Brother, \ Major Maurice 
 Moore, | / Affectionately Dedicate | this Book, (verso 
 blank), pp. [v, vi]; Text, pp. [l]-377; p. [378] blank; 
 p. [379] is occupied by a list of advertisements of 
 Works hy George Moore. ; p. [380] is occupied by an 
 advertisement of the Second Edition of 'Modern 
 Painting.' Printers' imprint at foot of p. 377 as 
 follows : The Walter Scott Press, ISewcastle-on-Tyne. 
 [The preliminaries consist of 1 leaf (pp. [i, ii]) pasted 
 on to a quarter-sheet (Title-page and Dedication).] 
 At end of volume there is a 16-page unnumbered 
 catalogue of books published by Walter Scott, Ltd., 
 with heading as follows : Walter Scott's \ New Books. 
 
250 
 
 In some copies this catalogue is printed on thin 
 paper. 
 Issued in dark green cloth, lettered across the back in 
 gilt as follows : Esther | Waters | A Novel | George 
 Moore \ Walter Scott; and on upper portion of front 
 cover in gilt as follows : Esther Waters | A Novel | 
 George Moore with an ornamental flower-design in 
 gilt in lower left-hand corner. Back cover blank. 
 Top edges gilt, fore and lower edges cut. Navy end- 
 papers (some copies were issued with light navy 
 end-papers). 
 
 (19) ^ 
 
 Celibates : 1895 
 
 Celibates | By | George Moore | London : Walter 
 Scott, Ltd. I Paternoster Square | 1895 
 
 Crown 8vo ; pp. viii -|- 560, consisting of Half-title, 
 Celibates (with a list of eight books Bi/ the same Author, 
 enclosed within a one-line border, on verso), pp. [i, 
 ii] ; Title-page, as above (verso blank), pp. [iii, iv] ; 
 Table of Contents (verso blank), pp. [v, vi] ; Fly-title 
 to first story, Mildred Lawson (verso blank), pp. [vii, 
 viii] ; Text, pp. [lJ-559 ; p. [560] blank. Printers' 
 imprint. Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to 
 Her Majesty | at the Edinburgh University Press, at 
 foot of p. 559. At end of volume there are 8 un- 
 numbered pages of advertisements of books published 
 by Messrs. Walter Scott, Ltd. There are fly-titles 
 before the different Tales, viz. Mildred Lawson, p. 
 [vii]; John Norton, p. [313]; and Agnes Lahens, 
 p. [453]. 
 
 Issued in dark red cloth, lettered across the back in 
 gilt as follows : [two double rules] | Celibates \ By | 
 George Moore \ [double rule] | Walter Scott \ [three 
 rules] ; and across the front in gilt : Celibates | By | 
 George Moore Back cover blank. Top edges gilt, 
 fore and lower edges cut. Dark bluish-green end- 
 papers. 
 
261 
 
 (20) 
 
 The Royal Academy 1895: 1895 
 
 "New Budget" Extras. No. 1 | The Royal Academy | 
 1895 I [A wavy line] \ Criticisms | [A line] \ By George 
 Moore | Caricatures | [A line] \ By Harry Furniss | 
 Some of which appeared in The New Budget | Price 
 Sixpence | Published at the Office of "The New 
 Budget'' I 69 Fleet Street, E.C. | 1895 | All rights 
 reserved 
 
 Pott 4to; pp. 64, consisting of Title-page, as above 
 (with an advertisement of Graham Sf Banks, | . . . | 
 Decorators and Upholsterers, on verso), pp. [1, 2] ; 
 Index, pp. [3], 4 ; Advertisement of Queen's Hall, | 
 Langham Place, W. p. [5] ; Advertisement of Pleyel 
 Pianos, p. [6] ; Text (signed at end : George Moore), 
 with heading as follows : The Royal Academy Exhibi- 
 tion, [a line] | Criticisms \ by \ George Moore, pp. [7]- 
 24 ; Caricatures \ by \ Harry Furniss., pp. 25-62 ; p. [63] 
 is occupied by an advertisement, with heading: Mr. 
 N. Fert,; p. [64] is occupied by an advertisement of 
 the Blue Posts Tavern 
 
 Issued as a 64-page pamphlet, sewn with stitches of 
 thread. All edges cut. 
 
 (21) t- 
 
 Evelyn Innes : 1898 
 
 Evelyn Innes | By | George Moore | London | T. 
 Fisher Unwin [ 1898 
 
 Tall crown 8vo ; pp. viii -f- 4r84, consisting of a Leaf, 
 with signature a on recto, and list of Novels at Six 
 Shillings Each., enclosed within a thin one-line 
 border, on verso, pp. [i. ii] ; Half-title, Evelyn Innes 
 (with publisher's monogram on verso), pp. [iii, iv] ; 
 Title-page, as above (with list of books By the Same 
 Author and [All Rights Reserved.] on verso), pp. [v. 
 
252 
 
 vi] ; Dedication, To \ Arthur Symons and W, B. Yeats \ 
 Two Contemporary Writers \ with whom \ I am in 
 syrnpathy (verso blank), pp. [vii, viii] ; Text, pp. [1]- 
 482. Printers' imprint in centre of p. [483] as 
 follows : Colston Sf Coy., Limited, Printers, Edinburgh. 
 P. [484] blank. The title of the work and pub- 
 lisher's name on title-page are printed in red, the 
 other lines are in black. At end of volume there 
 are 8 unnumbered pages of advertisements of 
 miscellaneous books published by T. Fisher Unwin. 
 (In some copies these advertisements leaves are 
 missing.) 
 Issued in dark green cloth, lettered across the back 
 in gilt as follows : Evelyn | Innes \ George \ Moore 
 (enclosed within a thin one-line border in gilt, and 
 T. Fisher Un?vin at foot, also enclosed within a thin 
 one-line border in gilt). Both sides blank. Top 
 edges gilt, fore and lower edges trimmed. White 
 end-papers. 
 
 (22) ^ 
 
 The Bending of the Bough: 1900 
 
 The Bending of the Bough. | A Comedy in Five 
 
 Acts. I By George Moore. [Double ornainent\ \ 
 
 London | T. Fisher Unwin | Paternoster Square | 
 1900 
 
 Crown 8vo; pp. xx -j- 156, consisting of Half-title, The 
 Bending of the Bough (with an advertisement of 
 'Evelyn Innes,' headed By the same Author, en- 
 closed within a thin one-line border, on verso), pp. 
 [i, ii] ; Title-page, as above (with [All rights reserved.] 
 at foot of verso), pp. [iii, iv] ; List of Characters, 
 p. [v] ; p. [vi] blank ; Preface, pp. vii-xx ; Text, 
 pp. [1]— 153; pp. [154-156] blank. Printers' imprint 
 at foot of p. 153 as follows: Unwin Brothers, The 
 Gresham Press, Woking and London 
 
 Issued in light blue cloth, lettered across the back in 
 gilt as follows : The | Bending \ofihe\ Bough \ George 
 
253 
 
 Moore | T. Fisher Unwin, and across the front in gilt 
 as follows : The Bending of the Bough \ George Moore 
 Back cover blank. Top and fore-edges unopened. 
 White end-papers. 
 
 (23) '-^ 
 
 Sister Teresa : 1901 
 
 Sister Teresa | By | George Moore | [Publisher's 
 device] \ London | T. Fisher Unwin | Paternoster 
 Square | 1901 
 
 Crown 8vo ; pp. viii -j- 248, consisting of a Leaf, with 
 signature a on recto (verso blank), pp. [i, ii] ; Half- 
 title, Sister Teresa (with an advertisement of two 
 books by the same author, divided into three com- 
 partments and enclosed within a thin one-line border, 
 on verso), pp. [iii, iv] ; [Portrait of George Moore, 
 with facsimile signature : Alivays yours | George Moore, 
 printed on imitation Japanese vellum, followed by 
 a leaf of tissue] ; Title-page, as above (with All Rights 
 reserved at foot of verso), pp. [v, vi] ; Preface, pp. vii, 
 viii; Text, pp. [l]-236. Printers' imprint at foot of 
 p. 236 as follows : Colston Sf Coy. Limited, Printers, 
 Edinburgh Pp. [237-248] are occupied by advertise- 
 ments of Books for I Recreation | a7id Study, published 
 by T. Fisher Unwin. 
 
 Issued in dark green cloth, lettered across the back in 
 gilt as follows : Sister | Teresa \ By | George | Moore 
 (enclosed within a thin one-line border in gilt), and 
 T. Fisher Unwin at foot (also enclosed within a thin 
 one-line border in gilt). Both sides blank. Top 
 edges gilt, fore-edges unopened, lower edges trimmed. 
 White end-papers. 
 
 The Frontispiece- Portrait of George Moore is by Henry 
 Tonks, Slade Professor. 
 
254 
 
 (24) 
 AH U-IJtl-gORC: [1902] 
 
 An C-1Jn-gOnC. | [Rule] I S^^AtUA I le SeCtlSA 
 6 mOR'OA ; I AifCfijce 6'n SACfbeAplxx | as I 
 pA-OriAIS 6 StllUeAt)Ain, b.A. | [Rnk] I Dublin | 
 Sealy, Bryers & Walker. 
 
 Royal 8vo ; pp. xii -j- 11 6, consisting of Half-title, An 
 c-iJR-$onc. (verso blank), pp. [i, ii] ; Title-page, as 
 above (with [a line] | All Rights Reserved, [a line] in 
 centre of verso), pp. [iii, iv] ; Dedication, (verso blank), 
 pp. [v, vi] ; Table of Contents, ^n cIar. (verso blank), 
 pp. [vii, viii] ; Preface, pp. [ix-xii (incorrectly paged 
 [i]-iv)] ; Text, pp. [1]-115 ; p. [116] blank. At foot 
 of p. 115 is the following printers' imprint : [a line] | 
 Printed by Sealy, Bryers and Walker, Dublin. 
 
 Issued in grey printed paper wrappers, with the 
 lettering on title-page repeated on front cover, with 
 x\0Ti 85111,1115 in upper right-hand corner. Back cover 
 blank. Cut edges. 
 
 (25) ^ 
 
 The Untilled Field: 1903 
 
 The Untilled Field | By | George Moore. | London | 
 T. Fisher Unwin | Paternoster Square. | m-d-cccc-iii. 
 
 Crown 8vo ; pp. viii -|- 424, consisting of Half-title, The \ 
 Untilled Field, (verso blank), pp. [i, ii] ; List of Neiv 
 Six Shilling Novels., enclosed within a thin one-line 
 border, p. [iii] ; List of Books By the same Author., 
 enclosed within a thin one-line border, p. [iv] ; Title- 
 page, as above (with (^All Rights Reserved.) on verso), 
 pp. [v, vi]; Table of Contents (verso blank), pp. [vii, 
 viii]; Fly-title, In the Clay, (verso blank), pp. [1, 2]; 
 Text, pp. 3-[420] ; pp. [421-424] are, occupied by 
 advertisements of books published by Mr. T. Fisher 
 Unwin. Printers' imprint at foot of p. [420] as 
 follows : Printed by Sealy, Biyers and Walker, Mid. 
 
255 
 
 Abbey St., Dublin. There are fly-titles before the 
 different ' Stories ' into which the work is divided, 
 at pp. [1], [27], [117], [153], [175], [199], [221], [241], 
 [259], [269], [279], [299], and [395]. Pp. [2], [28], 
 [116], [118], [152], [154], [174], [176], [198], [200], 
 [222], [240], [242], [258], [260], [270], [278], [280], 
 [300], [394], and [396] blank. The title of the work 
 and the author's and publisher's names on title-page 
 are printed in red, the other lines are in black. 
 Issued in scarlet cloth, lettered across the back in gilt 
 as follows : The | Untilled \ Field | By \ George \ 
 Moore (enclosed within a thin one-line border in gilt), 
 and T. Fisher Unjvin at foot (also enclosed within a 
 thin one-line border in gilt). The front cover is 
 decorated with design of intertwined sprays and 
 publisher's monogram in blind, and lettered on upper 
 portion in gilt as follows : The Untilled Field \ By 
 George Moore Back cover blank. Top edges gilt, 
 fore-edges cut. White end-papers. 
 
 (26) .'- 
 
 The Lake: 1905 
 
 The Lake | By | George IMoore | Author of 'Esther 
 Waters,' 'Evelyn Innes,' etc. | [Publisher's device^ hy 
 William Nicholson] \ London | William Heinemann | 
 1905 
 
 Crown 8vo ; pp. vi + 336, consisting of Half-title, The 
 Lake (with a list of New 6s. Novels on verso), pp. [i, ii] ; 
 Title-page, as above (with Copyright. New Yoi'k : 
 D. Appleton Sj- Co. 1905. \ Copyright. London: 
 William Heinemann. 1905. \ This Edition enjoys copy- 
 right in I all countries signatory to the Berne \ Treaty, 
 and is not to be imported | into the United States of 
 America, on verso), pp. [iii, iv] ; Dedicatory Letter, A 
 Edouard Dujardin, pp. [v], vi ; Text, pp. [l]-334 ; 
 printers' imprint. Billing and Sons, Ltd., Printers, Guild- 
 ford at foot of p. 334 ; pp. [335, 336] blank. [The 
 preliminaries consist of a quarter-sheet (2 leaves) 
 
256 
 
 with the Dedicatory Letter (1 leaf) pasted between 
 
 Title-page and p. [1] of text.] 
 
 Issued in dark red cloth, lettered across the back in gilt 
 
 as follows : The \ Lake \ George \ Moore | Heinemann, 
 
 and across the front in gilt as follows : The Lake \ 
 
 George Moore In centre of back cover, publisher's 
 
 windmill device (by William Nicholson) in blind. 
 
 Top edges cut, fore-edges trimmed, lower edges 
 
 uncut. White end-papers. 
 
 A second impression appeared in the same month. It 
 
 is exactly similar in binding and format, but the two lines 
 
 of Copyright on verso of Title-page are transposed, and 
 
 the following note is added in centre of verso : First 
 
 printed, November, 1905 \ Second Impression, November, 1905 
 
 (27) 
 
 Reminiscences of the Impressionist Painters : 1906 
 
 The Tower Press Booklets | Number Three [Two 
 ornaments] \ Reminiscences of the | Impressionist 
 Painters | By George Moore. {Ornament] \ Dublin: 
 Maunsel & Co., Ltd., | 60 Dawson Street. mcmvt. 
 
 Foolscap 8vo ; pp. xvi -\- 9-48, consisting of Blank leaf, 
 pp. [i, ii] ; Half-title, Reminiscences of the \ Im- 
 pressionist Painters \ By George Moore, (verso blank), 
 pp. [iii, iv] ; Title-page, as above (with printers' 
 imprint at foot of verso as follows : Printed at the 
 Tower Press, Thirty -eight Cornmarkei, Dublin.), pp. 
 [v, vi] ; Dedicatory Letter, beginning My dear Steer, 
 pp. [vii-xv] ; p. [xvi] blank ; Text, pp. 9-48. 
 
 Signatures (a)-c in eights ; d, 4 leaves. 
 
 Issued in light grey printed paper wrappers, with large 
 design of a tower, printed in black, on front, lettered 
 below in black as follows : The Tower Press Booklets | 
 Number Three [three ornaments] | Reminiscences of 
 the I Impressionist Painters. \ By George Moore. P. [2] 
 of cover blank. P. [3] is occupied by a list of volumes 
 in the same series, headed The Tower Press Booklets. 
 
257 
 
 P. [4] blank. Top edges unopened, fore and lower 
 edges uncut. 
 
 (28) ^ 
 
 Memoirs of My Dead Life: 1906 
 
 Memoirs of | My Dead Life | By | George Moore | 
 [Publisher's Windmill device^ by William Nicholson] | 
 London | William Heinemann | 1906 
 
 Crown 8vo ; pp. viii -|- 336, consisting of Blank leaf, 
 pp. [i, ii] ; Half-title, Memoirs of My Dead Life (with 
 list of Works hy George Moore on verso), pp. [iii, iv] ; 
 Title-page, as above (with Copyright 1906 by William 
 Heinemann. in centre of verso), pp. [v, vi] ; Table of 
 Contents (verso blank), pp. vii, [viii] ; Text, pp. [1]- 
 335 ; printers' imprint at foot of p. [336] as follows : 
 Printed hy T. and A. Constable , Printers to His Majesty | 
 at the Edinburgh University Press 
 
 Issued in navy blue cloth, lettered across the back in 
 gilt as follows : Memoirs | of My | Dead Life | George | 
 Moore (enclosed within a thin border with scallop- 
 shaped design at top and bottom in gilt) | Heinemann 
 On front cover, a large elongated panelled design 
 enclosed within a two-line border in blind. On back 
 cover, in lower right-hand corner, publisher's device 
 (the Whistler variety) in blind. Top and fore-edges 
 cut, lower edges uncut. White end-papers. 
 
 (29) y 
 
 Ave: 1911 
 
 ' Hail and Farewell \' \[A line] \ Ave | By | George 
 Moore | London | William Heinemann | 1911 
 
 Crown 8vo ; pp. vi -|- 368, consisting of Blank page, 
 p. [i] ; p. [ii] is occupied by an advertisement of two 
 books (' Memoirs of My Dead Life ' and ' The Lake ') 
 By the same Author; Half-title, ^ Hail and Farewell/' 
 (with 'Hail and Farewell/' \ A Trilogy \ L Ave \ //. 
 Salve [In preparation | HL Vale [In preparation in 
 S 
 
258 
 
 centre of verso), pp. [iii, iv] ; Title-page, as above 
 (with Copyright, London, 1911, by William Heinemann, 
 I and Washington, U.S.A., by D. Appleton and Co. at 
 foot of verso), pp. [v, vi] ; Overture, pp. [l]-39 ; Text, 
 pp. 40-367 ; printers' imprint. Billing and Sons, Ltd., 
 Printers, Guildford at foot of p. 367 ; p. [368] blank. 
 The title of the book, Ave, is printed in red, the other 
 lines are printed in black. 
 Issued in navy blue cloth, lettered across the back in 
 gilt as follows : Hail and \ Farewell \ [a line] | Ave I 
 George | Moore (enclosed within a thin border with 
 scallop-shaped design at top and bottom in gilt) | 
 Heinemann On front cover a large elongated orna- 
 mental design enclosed within a two-line border in 
 blind. On back cover in lower right-hand corner 
 publisher's device (the Whistler variety) in blind. 
 Top and fore-edges cut, lower edges trimmed. 
 White end-papers. 
 There is a much later issue, of which some copies are 
 printed on thinner paper, with pp. [i, ii] of the pre- 
 liminaries omitted. 
 
 (30) ^ 
 
 The Apostle : 1911 
 
 The Apostle | A Drama in Three Acts | By George 
 Moore | Dublin : Maunsel and Co. Ltd. | 96 Middle 
 Abbey Street | 1911 
 
 Large crown 8vo; pp. viii -f 104, consisting of Half- 
 title, The Apostle (verso blank), pp. [i, ii] ; Title- 
 page, as above (with All rights reserved. \ Printed by 
 Maunsel S^ Co., Ltd., Dublin, on verso), pp. [iii, iv] ; 
 Dedicatory Letter, beginning My dear Mary Hunter, 
 (verso blank), pp. [v, vi] ; Table of Contents (verso 
 blank), pp. [vii, viii] ; A Prefatory Letter \ on Reading 
 the Bible \ for the First Time, pp. 1-35 ; p. [36] blank ; 
 Fly-title to the play. The Apostle, p. [37] ; Persons in 
 the Play, p. [38]; Text, pp. 39-100; p. [101] blank; 
 pp. [102-103] are occupied by advertisements of The 
 
259 
 
 Works of J. M. Synge; p. [104] is occupied by 
 advertisement of books by Lady Gregory. 
 Issued in mauve cloth, lettered across the back in gilt 
 as follows : [a line] | The \ Apostle \ A Drama \ in 
 Three \ Acts \ George \ Moore \ Maunsel \ [a line]. 
 The front cover is lettered across in gilt as follows : 
 The Apostle \ A Drama in Three Acts \ By \ George 
 Moore, with a one-line border in blind, and a uniform 
 outer border in blind on back cover. Top edges cut, 
 fore-edges unopened, lower edges uncut. White 
 end-papers. 
 
 (81) ^ 
 
 Salve: 1912 
 
 * Hail and Farewell ! ' | [^ line] \ Salve | By | George 
 Moore | London | William Heinemann | 1912 
 
 Crown 8vo ; pp. iv -|- 380, consisting of Half-title, ' Hail 
 and Farewell I ' (with ' Hail and Farervell -' \ A Trilogy j 
 /. Ave I //. Salve \ HI. Vale [/« preparation on 
 verso), pp. [i, ii] ; Title-page, as above (with Copy- 
 right, London, 1912 on verso at foot), pp. [iii, iv] ; 
 Text, pp. [l]-379. Printers' imprint at foot of p. 379 
 as follows : Billing and Sons, Ltd., Printers, Guildford ; 
 p. [380] blank. The title of the book, Salve, is 
 printed in red ; the other lines are in black. 
 
 Issued in navy blue cloth, lettered across the back in 
 gilt as follows : Hail and \ Farewell \ [a line] | Salve \ 
 George \ Moore (enclosed within a gilt border with 
 scallop-shaped design at top and bottom) | Heinemann 
 On front cover, a large elongated ornamental design 
 enclosed within a two-line border in blind. On back 
 cover, in lower right-hand corner, publisher's device 
 (the Whistler variety) in blind. Top and fore-edges 
 cut, lower edges untrimmed. White end-papers. 
 There is an early issue with the border-design on 
 back in light green. 
 
260 
 
 (32) 
 
 Esther Waters : A Play in Five Acts : 1913 
 
 Esther Waters | By George Moore | A Play in Five 
 Acts I London : William Heinemann | 1913 
 
 Demy 8vo ; pp. xvi -\- 156, consisting of Half-title, 
 Esthers Waters \ By George Moore (with a list of 
 Works hy George Moore enclosed within a one-line 
 border on verso), pp. [i, ii] ; Title-page, as above 
 (with Copyright 191S in bottom left-hand corner of 
 verso), pp. [iii, iv] ; Table of Acts into which the play 
 is divided (verso blank), pp. [v, vi] ; Reprint of the 
 
 \ Programme of the Play for the first production at the 
 Apollo Theatre, on December 10, 1911 (verso blank), 
 pp. [vii, viii] ; Preface, pp. ix-xv ; p. [xvi] blank ; 
 Text, pp. 1-[153] ; at foot of p. [153] is the following 
 printers' imprint : Piinted hy | Ballantyne S^ Company 
 Ltd I at the Ballantyne Press | Tavistock Street Covent 
 Garden | London; pp. [154-156] blank. 
 
 Issued in drab green paper boards, with white paper 
 name and title-label on back lettered across in green 
 as follows : Esther \ Waters \ A Play in | Five Acts | 
 [ornament] | George | Moore \ [ornament] | London : 
 Heinemann \ 1913 (enclosed within a thin one-line 
 border). Both sides blank. All edges cut. White 
 end-papers. 
 
 (33) 
 
 Elizabeth Cooper : 1913 
 
 Elizabeth Cooper | A Comedy in Three Acts | By 
 George Moore | Maunsel and Co. Ltd. | Dublin and 
 London | 1913 
 
 Crown 8vo ; pp. 80, consisting of Half-title, Elizabeth 
 Cooper (verso blank), pp. [1, 2] ; Title-page, as above 
 (with Copyright 1913, George Moore in centre, and the 
 following printers' imprint at foot, of verso : Printed 
 by I Ballantyne Sf Company Ltd | London), pp. [3, 4] ; 
 
261 
 
 Note of First Performance and List of Persons in the 
 Play, p. [5] ; p. [6] blank ; Text, pp. 7-80. 
 Issued in drab green cloth, lettered across the back in 
 gilt as follows : Elizabeth \ Cooper \ A \ Comedy \ By | 
 George \ Moore \ Maunsel The front cover is lettered 
 across in gilt as follows : Elizabeth Cooper | A Comedy 
 By I George Moore, with a one-line outer border in 
 blind, and a uniform outer border in blind on back 
 cover. All edges cut. White end-papers. 
 
 (34) ^ 
 
 Vale: 1914 
 
 ' Hail and Farewell ! ' | [-^ line'] \ Vale | By | George 
 Moore | London | William Heinemann 
 
 Crown 8vo; pp. iv -f 364, consisting of Half-title, 
 ' Hail and Farewell ! ' (with 
 
 ' Hail and Farewell ! * 
 A Trilogy 
 HI. Ave 
 11. Salve 
 HI. Vale 
 on verso), pp. [i, ii] ; Title-page, as above (with Copy- 
 right, 191Jf. on verso below), pp. [iii, iv] ; Text, pp. 
 [l]-363. Printers' imprint at foot of p. 363 as 
 follows: Billing and Sons, Ltd., Printers, Guildford; 
 p. [364] blank. The title of the book, Vale, is 
 printed in red ; the other lines are in black. 
 Issued in navy blue cloth, lettered across the back in 
 gilt as follows : Hail and \ Farewell \ [a line] | Vale \ 
 George \ Moore \ (enclosed within a thin border with 
 scallop-shaped design at top and bottom in gilt) | 
 Heinemann On front cover, a large elongated 
 ornamental design enclosed within a two-line border 
 in blind. On back cover, in lower right-hand corner, 
 publisher's device (the Whistler variety) in blind. 
 Top and fore-edges cut, lower edges trimmed. White 
 end-papers. 
 
262 
 
 The second issue was issued with a cancel Half-title, 
 with the above misprint on verso, and the second ^ E ' in 
 * Farewell ' on recto, corrected. 
 
 [n the third issue, Copyright, 191Jf. on verso of title- 
 page is altered to London : William Heinemann. lOlJf.. | 
 Copyright. 
 
 (35) ^ 
 
 Muslin: 1915 
 
 Muslin I By | George Moore | \Puhlisher''s device^ hy 
 William Nicholson] \ London | William Heinemann 
 
 Crown 8vo ; pp. xx + 344, consisting of Half-title, 
 Muslin (with list of Works hy George Moore on verso), 
 pp. [i, ii] ; Title-page, as above (with the following 
 bibliographical note in centre of verso : Originally 
 published under the title of \ 'A Drama in Muslin,' 1886. | 
 New Edition, September, 1915. ; and London : William 
 Heinemann. 1915. at foot of verso), pp. [iii, iv] ; 
 Preface^ pp. v-xx ; Text, pp. [lJ-343 ; p. [344] 
 blank. At foot of p. 343 is the following printers' 
 imprint : [a line] | Billing and Sons, Ltd., Printers y 
 Guildford, England. At end of volume there is a 
 16-page numbered catalogue (undated) oi A List of \ 
 Current Fiction | published by | William Heinemann \ at 
 21 Bedford St., London, W.C. \ [Publisher's device, by 
 William Nicholson.] 
 
 Issued in navy blue cloth, lettered across the back in 
 gilt as follows : Muslin | George | Moore (enclosed 
 within a thin border with scallop-shaped design at 
 top and bottom in gilt) | Heinemann On front cover 
 a large elongated panelled design enclosed within a 
 two-line border in blind. On back cover, in lower 
 right-hand corner, publisher's device (by James 
 McNeill Whistler) in blind. Top and fore-edges cut, 
 lower edges uncut. White end-papers. 
 
263 
 
 (36) ^ 
 
 The Brook Kerith : 1916 
 
 The Brook Kerith | A Syrian Story | By George 
 Moore | Printed for T. Werner Laurie Ltd. | By the 
 Riverside Press Ltd., Edinburgh | 1916 
 
 Demy 8vo; pp. viii -j- 472, consisting of Blank page, 
 p. [i] ; p. [ii] is occupied by a list of three books By 
 George Moore, printed within a thin one-line border ; 
 Half-title, The Brook Kerith (verso blank), pp. [iii, iv] ; 
 Title-page, as above (verso blank), pp. [v, vi] ; A 
 Dedication (verso blank), pp. [vii, viii] ; Text, pp. 
 1-471 ; Printers' imprint. The Riverside Press Limited, 
 Edinburgh, in centre of p. [472]. 
 Issued half bound, with tan imitation leather back and 
 corners, and conventional marbled paper sides. On 
 the back are five raised bands and three medallions 
 in blind, and printed paper name and title-label, 
 lettered across in black as follows : The \ Brook | 
 Kerith | [ornament] | George \ Moore \ T. Werner 
 Laurie, Ltd. \ London Top edges cut, fore-edges un- 
 cut and unopened, lower edges uncut. White end- 
 papers. Issued without a duplicate paper name and 
 title- label. 
 Owing to the orders coming in so rapidly, the publishers 
 had to increase the size of the edition, and as the binders 
 had saved only a certain amount of tan imitation leather, 
 they were instructed to use the nearest material they could 
 find to bind the balance ; these remaining copies were 
 bound in half brown pegamoid. 
 
 Two hundred copies of the first edition were bound in 
 light grey cloth, lettered across the back in black as 
 follows : The \ Brook \ Kerith | [a line] | George \ Moore | 
 T. Werner | Laurie Ltd. Publishers' monogram within a 
 circle in black in centre of back cover ; front cover blank. 
 All edges (the leaves measuring 8j by 5J ins.) cut. This 
 issue was put into grey cloth for the exclusive use of the 
 Circulating Libraries. 
 
264 
 
 (37) 
 
 The Brook Kerith : 1916 
 
 Edition de Luxe 
 
 The Brook Kerith | A Syrian Story | By George 
 Moore | Printed for T. Werner Laurie Ltd. | By the 
 Riverside Press Ltd., Edinburgh | 1916 
 
 Demy 8vo ; pp. x -f- 472, consisting of Blank leaf^ pp. 
 [i, ii] ; Half-title, The Brook Kerith (verso blank), pp. 
 [ill, iv] ; Title-page, as above (verso blank), pp. [v, 
 vi] ; A Dedication (verso blank), pp. [vii, viii] ; 
 Certificate of Issue, as follows : The Brook Kerith \ 
 [a line] | This edition de luxe consists of | 250 copies, 
 
 numbered and signed. \ This is No (followed 
 
 by the number of copy written in ink) (followed by 
 the author's signature in ink : George Moore) (verso 
 blank), pp. [ix, x] ; Text, pp. 1-471 ; printers' imprint. 
 The Riverside Press Limited, Edinburgh in centre of 
 p. [472]. 
 
 Issued in light grey boards, with cream parchment back, 
 with paper name and title-label on back at top 
 lettered across in royal blue as follows : Edition de 
 Luxe I The | Brook | Kerith | [ornament] | George \ 
 Moore | T. Werner Laurie, Ltd. | London (printed 
 within a one-line border). Top and fore-edges un- 
 opened, lower edges uncut. Grey end-papers. 
 
 (38) 1/ 
 
 Lewis Seymour and Some Women : 1917 
 
 Lewis Seymour | and Some Women | By | George 
 Moore | [Publisher's device, hy William Nicholsoii] \ 
 London | William Heinemann 
 
 Crown 8vo; pp. xii -|- 310, consisting of Half-title, 
 Lewis Seymour | and Some Women (with list of Works 
 hy George Moore on verso), pp. [i, ii], Title-page, as 
 above (with London : William Heinemann, 1917. at 
 
265 
 
 foot of verso), pp. [iii, iv] ; Preface, pp. v-xi ; p. [x] 
 blank; Text, pp. [lJ-310. Printers' imprint at foot 
 of p. 310 as follows : Billing and Sons, Ltd., Printers, 
 Guildford, England At end of some copies there is a 
 blank leaf following p. 310. 
 Issued in navy blue cloth, lettered across the back in 
 gilt as follows : Lewis \ Seymour | and | Some | Women | 
 George \ Moore (enclosed within a thin border with 
 scallop-shaped design at top and bottom in gilt) | 
 Heinemann On front cover a large elongated panelled 
 design enclosed within a two-line border in blind. 
 On back cover, in lower right-hand corner, publisher's 
 device (the Whistler variety) in blind. Top and fore- 
 edges cut, lower edges uncut. White end-papers. 
 At end of some copies there is a 16-page numbered 
 catalogue (undated) of A List of \ Current Fiction | published 
 by I JVilliam Heinemann | at 21 Bedford St., London W.C. 
 
 (39) 
 
 A Story-Teller's Holiday : 1918 
 
 A Story-Teller's | Holiday | By | George Moore | 
 London | Privately Printed for Subscribers Only by | 
 Cum^nn Sqaw eolAif r\A \\ ^ipe^nn | 1918 
 
 Demy 8vo ; pp. x -|- 356, consisting of Blank leaf, pp. 
 [i, ii] ; Half-title, A Story-Teller s Holiday (verso 
 blank), pp. [iii, iv] ; Title-page, as above (verso 
 blank), pp. [v, vi] ; A Leave- Taking, p. [vii (in- 
 correctly paged v)] ; p. [viii] blank ; Certificate of 
 Issue, as follows : A Story-Teller s | Holiday \ [a line] | 
 This edition consists of 1000 copies, | numbered and 
 
 signed. \ This is No (each copy numbered 
 
 automatically) | (signed in ink by the author :) George 
 Moore (verso blank), pp. [ix, x] ; Text, pp. 1-355 ; 
 printers' imprint. The Riverside Press Limited, Edin- 
 burgh at foot of p. 355 ; p. [356] blank. 
 
 On p. 48 the second and third words in line 14, viz. 
 Nouvelle Athenes, are obliterated. 
 
 Issued in pale blue boards with cream parchment back. 
 
266 
 
 with white paper name and title-label on back 
 
 lettered across in brown as follows : A \ Story -Teller s \ 
 
 Holiday | [ornament] | George | Moore \ Privately \ 
 
 Printed Top edges unopened, fore-edges uncut and 
 
 unopened, lower edges uncut. Pale blue end-papers 
 
 to match the sides. 
 
 ' A Story-Teller's Holiday ' was issued for private 
 
 circulation by the Society for Irish Folk-Lore, for sale 
 
 to subscribers through the Society's agents, T. Werner 
 
 Laurie, Ltd. 
 
 (40) 
 
 Avowals : 1919 
 
 Avowals I By | George JMoore | London | Privately 
 
 Printed for Subscribers Only by | CtimAnn Se^n eot-Aif 
 
 riA ti ^t\e-Ann | 1919 
 
 Demy 8vo; pp. x-|-312, consisting of 2 blank leaves, 
 pp. [i-iv] ; Half-title, Avowals (with By George 
 Moore | {Privately Printed) \ The [sic] Story-Teller s 
 Holiday . July 1918 | Avowals .... September 1919 | 
 Abelard and Heldise . . {In preparation) on verso), pp. 
 [v, vi] ; Title-page, as above (verso blank), pp. [vii, 
 viii] ; Certificate of Issue, as follows : Avowals | [a 
 line] I This edition consists of 1000 copies \ numbered 
 
 and signed. \ This is No (each copy numbered 
 
 automatically) | (signed in ink by the author :) George 
 Moore (verso blank), pp. [ix, x] ; Text, pp. 1-310; 
 printers' imprint, The Riverside Press Limited, 
 Edinburgh in centre of p. [311] ; p. [312] blank. 
 
 Issued in pale blue boards with cream parchment back, 
 with white paper name and title-label on back 
 lettered across in sepia as follows : Avowals \ 
 [ornament] | George | Moore \ Privately Printed Top 
 edges unopened, fore-edges uncut and unopened, 
 lower edges uncut. Pale blue end-papers to match 
 the sides. Uniform with ' A Story-Teller's Holiday.' 
 
 * Avowals ' was issued for private circulation by the 
 Society for Irish Folk-Lore, for sale to subscribers through 
 the Society's agents, T. Werner Laurie, Ltd. 
 
267 
 
 (41) 
 EsTHEE Waters : 1920 
 
 Esther Waters | By | George Moore | London | 
 Privately Printed for Subscribers Only by | CtimAnn 
 Se^n eol,Air n^ ti ^|\eAnn | 1920 
 
 Demy 8vo; pp. x-{-416, consisting of Blank leaf, pp. 
 [i^ ii] ; Half-title, Esther Waters (with a list of books 
 Bi/ George Moore | {Privately Printed) on verso), pp. 
 [iii, iv] ; Title-page, as above (verso blank), pp. [v, vi] ; 
 Certificate of Issue, as follows : Esther Waters | [a 
 line] I This edition consists of 750 copies \ numbered 
 
 and signed. | This is No (each copy numbered 
 
 automatically) | (signed in ink by the author :) George 
 Moore (verso blank), pp. [vii, viii] ; Epistle Dedicatory , 
 pp. [ix, X (incorrectly numbered v, vi)]. [The prelimi- 
 naries consist of a half-sheet (4 leaves), with the 
 Certificate of Issue (1 leaf) pasted between the Title- 
 page and Epistle Dedicatory.'] Text, pp. [1]-415 ; 
 printers' imprint at foot of p. 415 as follows : Billing 
 and Sons, Ltd., Piinters, Guildford, England. ; p. [416] 
 blank. 
 
 Issued in pale blue boards with white parchment back, 
 with cream paper name and title-label on back lettered 
 across in brown as follows : Esther | Waters \ [orna- 
 ment] I George \ Moore \ Privately Printed Top edges 
 cut, fore-edges unopened, lower edges trimmed. 
 Pale blue end-papers to match the sides. 
 
 ' Esther Waters ' was issued for private circulation by 
 the Society for Irish Folk-Lore, for sale to subscribers 
 through the Society's agents, T. Werner Laurie, Ltd. 
 
 (42) ^ 
 The Coming of Gabrielle : 1920 
 
 The Coming of | Gabrielle | A Comedy | By | George 
 Moore | London | Privately Printed for Subscribers 
 Only by | Cum^nn 5eAW eoUif x\a n ^m^^aww \ 1920 
 
268 
 
 Demy 8vo ; pp. xxxii -|- Certificate of Issue -f- 148, 
 consisting of Half-title, The Coming of Gahrielle 
 (verso blank), pp. [1, ii] ; Title-page, as above (with 
 a list of books By George Moore \ (Privately Printed) 
 in centre of verso), pp. [iii, iv] ; Certificate of Issue, 
 as follows : The | Coming of Gahrielle | [a line] | This 
 edition consists of 1000 copies | numbered and signed. | 
 This is No (each copy numbered automati- 
 cally) I (signed in ink by the author :) George Moore 
 (verso blank) [The Certificate of Issue is a separate 
 leaf pasted between the Title-page and first page of 
 Preface, and is not reckoned in the preliminaries] ; 
 Preface, pp. v-xxx ; p. [xxxi] blank ; People i?i the 
 Play, p. [xxxii] ; Text, pp. 1-146 ; printers* imprint. 
 The Riverside Press Limited, Edinburgh in centre of 
 p. [147]. Pp. [50] and [148] blank. 
 Issued in pale blue boards with cream parchment back, 
 with white paper name and title-label on back lettered 
 across in grey as follows : The \ Coming | of \ Gabrielle | 
 [ornament] | George | Moore | Privately | Printed Top 
 edges unopened, fore-edges uncut and unopened, 
 lower edges uncut. Pale blue end-papers to match 
 the sides. 
 ' The Coming of Gabrielle ' was issued for private 
 circulation by the Society for Irish Folk-Lore, for sale 
 to subscribers through the Society's agents, T. Werner 
 Laurie, Ltd. 
 
 (43) ^ 
 
 HtLOiSE AND ABi:LARD I 1921 
 
 Heloise and Abelard | By | George Moore | In Two 
 Volumes | Volume I [Volume //] | London | Privately 
 Printed for Subscribers Only by | CumAtin SeAW eotxMf 
 x\A ti 6i|\ex\nn | 1921 
 
 2 Vols., Demy 8vo 
 
 Vol. I, pp. x -f- 264, consisting of p. [i] with prmters* 
 signature " i. — a " in bottom left-hand corner ; pp. [ii- 
 iv] blank ; Half-title, Heloise and Abelard (with a list 
 
269 
 
 of books By George Moore | {Limited Editions) in centre 
 of verso), pp. [v, vi] ; Title-page, as above (with 
 Dedication in French A Madame X in centre of 
 verso), pp. [vii, viii] ; Certificate of Issue, as follows : 
 Heldise and Abe lard] | a line] | This edition consists 
 of one thousand j Jive hundred copies, numbered and | 
 
 signed. | This is No (each copy numbered 
 
 automatically) | (signed in ink by the author :) George 
 Moore (verso blank), pp. [ix, x] ; Text, pp. 1-262 ; 
 printers' imprint, 'The Riverside Press Limited, 
 Edinburgh in centre of p. [263] ; p. [264] blank. 
 
 Vol. II, pp. 256, consisting of Half-title, Heldise and 
 Abelard, with printers' signature " ii. — a " in bottom 
 left-hand corner (verso blank), pp. [1, 2] ; Title-page, 
 as above (verso blank), pp. [3, 4] ; Text, pp. 5-252 ; 
 printers' imprint, The Riverside Press Limited, Edinburgh 
 in centre of p. [253] ; pp. [254-256] blank. 
 
 Issued in pale blue boards with cream parchment back, 
 with white paper name and title-label on back lettered 
 across in brown as follows : Heldise | and \ Abelard. | 
 [one star (two stars on Volume II)] | George \ Moore \ 
 Privately | Printed Top edges unopened, fore-edges 
 uncut and unopened, lower edges uncut. Pale blue 
 end-papers to match the sides. Uniform with 'A 
 Story-Teller's Holiday* and 'Avowals.' 
 
 ' Heloise and Abelard ' was issued for private circulation 
 by the Society for Irish Folk-Lore, for sale to subscribers 
 through the Society's agents, T. Werner Laurie, Ltd. 
 
 (44) 
 
 Fragments from Heloise & Abj^lard : 1921 
 
 Fragments from | Heloise & Abelard | By George 
 Moore | London | Privately Printed for Subscribers 
 by I CtrniAtin Se^n eolAip tia Ii 6i|iex3knn | 1921 
 
 Demy 8vo ; pp. 24, consisting of Title-page, as above 
 (verso blank), pp. [1, 2] ; Sonnet in French, with 
 heading in italic capitals as follows : La Reponse de 
 
270 
 
 Georges Moore en | forme de Sonnet a son ami Edouard | 
 Dujardin (T Auteur de " La Source \ du Fleuve Chretien ") 
 qui I'avait | invite a Fontainebleau | pour manger de \ 
 Valose, p. 3 ; p. [4] blank ; Preface, pp. 5-7 ; p. [8] 
 blank ; Text, pp. 9-23 ; printers' imprint in centre 
 of p. [24] as follows : Printed by | The Riverside Press 
 Limited, Edinburgh 
 Issued in pale blue paper wrappers, lettered across the 
 front at top in dark brown as follows : Fragments 
 from I Helo'ise Sc Abelard \ By George Moore Pp. 
 [2, 3, and 4] of cover blank. Sewn with a double 
 stick of pale blue imitation embroidery silk. Top 
 edges unopened, fore-edges uncut and unopened, 
 lower edges uncut, with the wrappers overlapping. 
 There is no Certificate of Issue. Two thousand copies 
 
 were printed. 
 
 ^ Fragments from Heloise & Abelard ' was issued for 
 
 private circulation by the Society for Irish Folk- Lore, 
 
 for sale to subscribers through the Society's agents, 
 
 T. Werner Laurie, Ltd. 
 
 (45) 
 
 Memoirs of My Dead Life : 1921 
 
 'Moore Hall' Edition 
 
 Memoirs | of My Dead Life | of | Galanteries , Medi- 
 tations I and Remembrances | Soliloquies or Advice to 
 Lovers, | — with many miscellaneous Reflections | on 
 Virtue & Merit | By | George Moore of Moore Hall 
 Co Mayo | [ Woodcut Illustration] \ London | Published 
 by Heinemann. 
 
 Demy 8vo ; pp. xx -)- 292, consisting of Half-title, 
 Memoirs of My Dead Life (with list of Works by 
 George Moore on verso), pp. [i, ii] ; [Frontispiece : 
 Daguerreotype Portrait, in colours, of George Moore at 
 the age of ten] ; Title-page, as above (with London : 
 William Heinemann, 1921. at foot of verso), pp. [iii, 
 iv] ; Certificate of Issue, as follows : Memoirs of My 
 
271 
 
 Dead Life \ [a line] | This edition, printed from hand- 
 set I type on English hand-made paper, | is limited to 
 one thousand and thirty [ copies, of which one thousand 
 are for | sale. | This is No (each copy num- 
 bered in ink) | (signed in ink by the author :) George 
 Moore (verso blank), pp. [v, vi] ; Epistle Dedicatory, to 
 My dear Gosse, pp. vii-ix ; p. [x] blank ; Prelude, pp. 
 xi-xviii ; Table of Contents (verso blank), pp. [xix, 
 xx] ; Text, pp. [l]-290 ; at end of text : The End of 
 this Volume. ; printers' imprint at foot of p. 290 as 
 follows : [a line] | Printed in Great Britain by Richard 
 Clay Sf So?is, Limited, Bungay, Suffolk. ; pp. [291, 292] 
 blank. 
 Issued in pale blue boards with white parchment back, 
 with white paper name and title-label on back 
 lettered across in brown as follows : Memoirs | of My | 
 Dead Life \ George Moore | Heinemann Top edges 
 unopened, fore-edges uncut and unopened, lower 
 edges uncut. Pale blue end-papers to match the 
 sides. 
 
BOOKS WITH INTRODUCTIONS 
 BY GEORGE MOORE 
 
 (46) 
 
 Piping Hot ! : 1885 
 
 Piping Hot ! | (Pot-Bouille.) | A Realistic Novel. | 
 By I ifimile Zola. | Translated from the 63rd French 
 Edition. | Illustrated with Sixteen Page Engravings, | 
 from Designs by Georges Bellenger. | London : | Vize- 
 telly & Co., 42 Catherine Street, Strand. | 1885. 
 
 Thick crown 8vo ; pp. ii -j- xviii -j- 9-384, consisting of 
 2 pages of advertisements, with Press Notices, of New 
 Realistic Novels. . . . A Mummer s Wife. By George 
 Moore, . . . (not reckoned in pagination) ; Half-title, 
 Piping-Hot ! (with list of Zola's Realistic Novels, on 
 verso), pp. [i, ii] ; [Frontispiece : Valerie in hysterics 
 at the Wedding Ball. \ p. 160. (not reckoned in 
 pagination)] ; [Illustrated Title-page : Piping Hot ! | 
 {Pot-Bouille.^ I [Illustration] | Jubilation of the Jos- 
 ser ands at Berthe's Engagement, p. 102. \ By Emile 
 Zola, (not reckoned in pagination)] ; Title-page, as 
 ahove (verso blank), pp. [iii, iv] ; Preface, (by George 
 Moore), pp. [v]-xviii ; Text, pp. [9]-383 ; p. [384] 
 blank. At end of volume there is a 20-page 
 numbered illustrated catalogue of Vizetelly S^ Co.'s 
 Nerv Books, \ and New Editions, dated December, 188Jf.. 
 There is no printer's imprint. 
 
 Signatures : a (8 leaves) ; a (6 leaves) ; b — 2a in eights. 
 
 The illustrations, of which there is no list, face pp. 
 [Frontispiece and Illustrated Title-page], 24, 50, 61, 
 88, 98, 134, 168, 190, 192, 246, 282, 288, 318, and 
 358. 
 
273 
 
 Issued in brown cloth, lettered across the back as 
 follows : Piping | Hot / | Emile Zola | Illustrated | Vize- 
 tellif Sf Co with lines in blind at top and bottom ; and 
 on front in gilt as follows : Piping Hot ! \ A Realistic 
 Novel I [Illustration in gilt on brick-red background, 
 surrounded by ornamental border in black] | By 
 ^rnile Zola. | Illustrated. On back cover, three-line 
 border in blind. Top and fore-edges unopened, 
 lower edges cut. Flowered end-papers of daisies on 
 brown background. 
 
 (47) 
 
 The Rush for the Spoil : 1885 
 
 The I Rush for the Spoil | (La Curee). | A Realistic 
 Novel. I By | Emile Zola. | Translated without Abridg- 
 ment from the 34th French Edition. | Illustrated with 
 Twelve Page Engravings. | London : | Vizetelly & Co., 
 42 Catherine Street, Strand. | 1885. 
 
 Crown 8vo ; pp. vi + viii -j- 9-290, consisting of Half- 
 title, The Rusk for the Spoil | (La Curee). \ A Realistic 
 Novel, (with a list of Zola's Powerful Realistic Novels. 
 on verso), pp. [i, ii] ; Illustrated Title-page : The | 
 Rush for the Spoil | {La Curee). \ [Illustration] j 
 Maxime discovers his Father at the Maison Doree. | p. 
 120. I By Emile Zola, (verso blank), pp. [iii, iv] ; Title- 
 page, as above (verso blank), pp. [v, vi] ; Preface. 
 (signed at end: George Moore.), pp. [i]-viii; Text, 
 pp. [9]-290. There is no printer's imprint. 
 
 Issued in royal blue cloth, lettered across the back in 
 rust-red as follows : The | Rush | for the \ Spoil | 
 Emile Zola \ Illustrated \ Vizetelly S^ C? with four lines 
 at top and bottom, and across the front in rust-red as 
 follows : The Rush for | the Spoil \ A Realistic Novel | 
 Emile Zola, with four lines at top and bottom. Back 
 cover blank. Top edges unopened, fore and lower 
 edges trimmed. Flowered end-papers. 
 
274 
 
 (48) 
 
 Piping Hot!: 1886 
 
 Large Paper Illustrated Edition 
 
 Piping Hot! | (Pot-Bouille.) | A Realistic Novel. | 
 [^Illustration, with lettering below as follows: The Jos- 
 serands' Delight at Berthe's Engagement.] | By Emile 
 Zola. I Illustrated with 104 Engravings from Designs 
 by French Artists. | London: | Vizetelly & Co., 42, 
 Catherine Street, Strand. | 1886 
 
 Royal 8vo ; pp. xvi -j- 314, consisting of Half-title, Piping 
 Hot ! I {Pot-Bouille.) (verso blank), pp. [i, ii] ; Frontis- 
 piece, Valerie in Hysterics at the Wedding Ball. | P. 129. 
 (recto blank), pp. [iii, iv] ; Title-page, as above (verso 
 blank), pp. [v, vi] ; List of [47] Page Engravings. 
 pp. [vii, viii] ; Preface, signed at end : George Moore. 
 pp. [ix]-xvi; Text, pp. [1]-312 ; p. [313] is occupied 
 by a list of Zola's Realistic Novels. ; p. [314] blank. 
 There is no printer's imprint. 
 Issued in light peacock blue cloth, lettered across the 
 back in gilt as follows : Piping | Hot / | £mile Zola | 
 Illustrated | Edition | Vizetelly 8^ C"- with three lines in 
 dark blue at top and bottom; and lettered on front 
 cover as follows : Piping Hot ! (in gilt) | A Realistic 
 Novel (in brick red) | [Illustration in gilt on dark 
 blue background, surrounded by ornamental border 
 in gilt] I By £mile Zola, (in brick-red) | Profusely 
 Illustrated, (in gilt), the whole surrounded by an 
 ornamental border in dark blue. On back cover, 
 ornamental border with publishers' device in centre 
 in blind. All edges cut. Conventional figured end- 
 papers printed in brown on white background. 
 
 (49) 
 
 Poor Folk: 1894 
 
 [Illustration, by Aubrey Beardsley] \ Poor P'olk | trans- 
 lated I from I the Russian | of | F. Dostoievsky | by | 
 
275 
 
 Lena Milman | with an | Introduction | by | George 
 Moore | London | Elkin Mathews | and John Lane | 
 [A line] \ Roberts Brothers | Boston | 1894 
 
 Crown 8vo ; pp. xx + 192, consisting of Half-title, Poor 
 Folk (with Copyrighted in the United States | All rights 
 reserved in centre of verso), pp. [i, ii] ; Title-page, as 
 above (with printers' imprint at foot of verso as 
 follows : Edinburgh : T. and A. Constable, Printers to 
 Her Majesty), pp. [iii, iv] ; p. [v] is occupied by the 
 device of ' The Keynote Series ' ; p. [vi] blank ; 
 Preface (by George Moore), pp. vii-xx; Text, pp. 
 [1]-191 ; p. [192] blank; Printers' imprint at foot of 
 p. 191 as follows : [a line] | Pnnted by T. and A. Con- 
 stable, Printers to Her Majesty | at the Edinburgh Uni- 
 versity Press At end of volume there is a 16-page 
 numbered List of Books \ in | Belles Lettres, dated 
 (on p. [3]) March 1894 The title of the book. Poor 
 Folk, is printed in red ; the other lines are in black. 
 
 Issued in yellow cloth, lettered across the back in gilt 
 as follows : Poor | Folk \ [ornament] | Fedor \ Dostoi- 
 evsky I [key in black] | [ornament] | Elkin | Mathews | 
 and John | Lane [ornament]. On front cover, design 
 in black by Aubrey Beardsley, and lettered across in 
 black as follows : Poor Folk \ A Novel \ by | Fedor 
 Dostoievsky \ Translated \ from the Russian \ by | Lena 
 Milman \ With | A Critical Introduction | by | George 
 Moore In centre of back cover, key design with 
 date 1894. Top and fore-edges unopened, lower 
 edges uncut. White end-papers. 
 
 This is Volume II of 'The Keynote Series.* 
 
 (50) 
 The Heather Field and Maeve : 1899 
 
 The Heather Field | and | Maeve | By | Edward Mar- 
 tyn I Author of " Morgante the Lesser " | With an 
 Introduction by | George Moore | [Publishers' device] \ 
 London | Duckworth & Co. | 3 Henrietta Street, W.C. | 
 
 MDCCCXCIX 
 T 2 
 
276 
 
 Pott 4to; pp. xxviii -f- 132^ consisting of Half-title, The 
 Heather Field \ and \ Maeve (with All Rights ReseiDed. 
 in centre of verso), pp. [i, ii] ; Title-page, as above 
 (verso blank), pp. [iii, iv] ; Dedication : / Dedicate 
 these Two Plays to \ George Moore, W. B. Yeats \ and | 
 Arthur Symons. \ E. M. (verso blank), pp. [v, vi] ; 
 Introduction (signed at end : George Moore), pp. vii- 
 xxviii ; Fly-title to The Heather Meld \ [a line] | A 
 Play in Three Acts (with Dramatis Personce in centre 
 of verso), pp. [1, 2] ; Text of 'The Heather Field,' 
 pp. 3-83 ; p. [84] blank ; Fly-title to Maeve \ [a line] | 
 A Psychological Drama in Two Acts (with Dramatis 
 Personce in centre of verso), pp. [85, 86] ; Text of 
 'Maeve,* pp. 87-129; Printers' imprint in centre of 
 p. [130] as follows : Printed hy | Tumhull and Spears, | 
 Edinburgh', pp. [131, 132] are occupied by advertise- 
 ments of Messrs Duckworth S^- Co.'s | Nefv Books. | 
 Modern Plays. 
 
 Issued in light green cloth, lettered up the back in 
 brown as follows : [two Shamrock designs] The Heather 
 Field [two Shamrock designs], and across the front in 
 brown as follows : The Heather Field \ and Maeve [two 
 Shamrock designs] | By Edward Martyn \ [three Sham- 
 rock designs] | With an Introduction hy | George Moore 
 [two ornaments]. Back cover blank. Top edges 
 unopened, fore and lower edges trimmed. White 
 end-papers. 
 
 (51) 
 
 An Irish Gentleman : [1913] 
 
 An Irish Gentleman | George Henry Moore | His 
 Travel | His Racing | His Politics | By | Colonel Mau- 
 rice George Moore, C.B. | With a Preface | by | George 
 Moore | [Heraldic arms, with inscription in Irish^ | 
 London | T. Werner Laurie Ltd. | Clifford's Inn 
 
 Demy 8vo ; pp. xxviii -|- 404, consisting of Blank leaf, 
 pp. [i, ii]; Half-title, An Irish Gentleman | [a line] | 
 George Henry Moore \ [a line] | [Publishers' device] 
 
277 
 
 (with a list of Books of Travel, enclosed within a one- 
 line border, on verso), pp. [iii, iv] ; [Portrait of Col. 
 Maurice Moore, C.B.] ; Title-page, as above (verso 
 blank), pp. [v, vi] ; Preface, pp. vii-xx ; Table of 
 Contents, pp. xxi-xxvi ; List of Illustrations, p. xxvii ; 
 p. [xxviii] blank ; Text, pp. 1-385 ; p. [386] blank ; 
 Index, pp. 387-396. Pp. [397-404] are occupied by 
 advertisements of books. At foot of p. 396 is the 
 following printers' imprint : The Northumberland 
 Press[,'] Thornton Street, Keivcastle-upon-Tyne A small 
 slip, bearing the following Note : What the Prefacer 
 writes regarding the \ mode of his fathers death must be 
 taken | as expressing his wishes, and not the facts. | The 
 Author, is inserted between the Title-page and first 
 page of Preface. 
 Issued in dark red cloth, lettered across the back in gilt 
 as follows : An | Iiish | Gentleman | George | Henry | 
 Moore \ [Shamrock design] | M. G. Moore \ T. Werner 
 Laurie V'l (enclosed within a one-line border in gilt), 
 and across the front in gilt as follows : An Irish 
 Gentleman \ George Henry Moore | His Travels \ His 
 Racing | His Politics | [Shamrock design] | M. G. Moore 
 (enclosed within a one-line border in gilt). In centre 
 of back cover, publishers' device in blind. All edges 
 cut. White end-papers. 
 
 (52) 
 
 The Genius of the Marne : 1919 
 
 The I Genius of the Marne | A Play in Three Scenes | 
 By I John Lloyd Balderston | With an Introduction | 
 by I George Moore | Nicholas L. Brown | New York 
 
 MCMXIX 
 
 Crown 8vo ; pp. ii -f xx + 90, consisting of Blank leaf 
 (not reckoned in pagination), pp. [i, ii] ; Half-title, 
 The Geniiis of the Marne (verso blank), pp. [i, ii] ; 
 Title-page (with Copyright, 1919, by \ Nicholas L. 
 Brown in centre of verso), pp. [iii, iv] ; Dedication 
 To a Lady . . . (verso blank), pp. [v, vi] ; Fly-title to 
 
278 
 
 Introduction | hy | George Moore (verso blank), pp. 
 [vii, viii] ; Introduction, pp. ix-xv ; p. [xvi] blank ; 
 List of Characters (verso blank), pp. [xvii, xviii] ; Fly- 
 title to the Play, The Genius of the Marne (verso 
 blank), pp. [xix, xx] ; Text, pp. 1-86 ; pp. [87-90] 
 blank. There is no printer's imprint. 
 
 Issued in dark grey boards with pale blue paper name 
 and title-label on back lettered across in blue as 
 follows : [a line] | The | Genius | of the | Marne | 
 Balderston | George Allen | S^ Unwin Ltd. | [a line], and 
 pale blue paper name and title-label in centre of 
 front cover, lettered across in blue as follows : The | 
 Genius | of the | Marne | John L. Balderston \ Introduc- 
 tion hy I George Moore Back cover blank. All edges 
 cut. White end-papers. 
 
 There is a printed slip inserted between the half-title 
 and title-page, lettered in red as follows : This Book 
 is now published hy | George Allen Sf Unwin, Ltd. | 
 Ruskin House J I 40, Museum Street, I London, W.C. 
 
NOTES ON THE VALUES OF THE FIRST ,,^lt 
 
 EDITIONS OF THE WRITINGS OF 
 GEORGE MOORE 
 
 1'^ 
 
 (1) Flowers of Passion, 1878. Excessively rare and 
 seldom occurs for sale. At Sotheby's (April 5^ 1921) a copy 
 realized £29 10*., and again in the same rooms (July 18, 
 1921) £21. Anothercopyat Sotheby's (December 14, 1921) 
 with a Poem in the handwriting of the author, entitled 
 The Ballad of Lovers, and addressed To Fluffie, consisting 
 of three 8 -line stanzas and Envoy of four lines, signed and 
 dated Fehy. 11, 1871, realized £50. ' Flowers of Passion,' 
 like all George Moore's first editions, has considerably 
 appreciated in value during the last few years. Gleeson 
 White's copy was catalogued by Lionel Isaacs in 1899 at 
 
 (2) Martin Luther, 1879. The last record is at Anderson's 
 Auction Co., New York (January 29, 1919), when a copy 
 realized $51.00. The present value of the book is probably 
 about £20. 
 
 (3) Pagan Poems, 1881. Excessively rare, especially 
 with the title-page. At Anderson's Auction Co., New 
 York (January 29, 1919), a presentation copy inscribed 
 To Violet Fane from the Author, with a 3-page Autograph 
 Letter from the author to the recipient, realized $540.00. 
 The last English record is at Puttick & Simpson's (January 
 20, 1915), when a copy with the title-page realized £15 : 
 the present value, however, is about £60, or probably 
 more. Gleeson White's copy was catalogued by Lionel 
 
 
280 
 
 Isaacs in 1899 at 12*. 6rf. In 1920 Messrs. Henry Sotheran 
 & Co. catalogued a presentation copy To William Rossetti 
 with many complimenis, George Moore, 1881. On the fly-leaf 
 of this copy was the following inscription by the late 
 W. M. Rossetti : This hook raised some clamour, arid I think 
 it was withdrawn from circulation, W. M. R., 1906. 
 
 (4) A Modern Lover, 3 vols., 1883. There is no recent 
 record of a copy having occurred for sale in the auction 
 rooms. A shabby copy at Puttick's (April 29, 1919) 
 realized £5 5*. To-day a fine copy would probably realize 
 about £25. 
 
 (5) A Mummer s Wife, 1885. Very scarce, especially in » ^ ^ « 
 fine state. A fine copy to-day would probably realize about ^ ' ' 
 £10. A copy at Sotheby's (April b, 1921) realized £7. ,*^ i "%' 
 
 (6) Literature at Nurse, 1885. An uncommon pamphlet, 
 which seldom occurs for sale. A copy at Hodgson's 
 (May 27, 1921), inscribed by the author With the wiiters 
 compliinents, realized £13. 
 
 (7) A Drama in Muslin^ 1886. A copy at Sotheby's 
 (April 5, 1921) realized £6 5*. The book is very scarce 
 in fine state. 
 
 (8) A Mere Accident, 1887. Value of a fine copy about /X*'^ • 
 £3 3.9. to £3 10*. The book usually occurs for sale in "'^^ 
 shabby condition. 
 
 (9) Pamell and his Island, 1887. A copy at Anderson's 
 Auction Co., New York (January 29, 1919), realized 
 $17.00. A copy to-day in England would probably realize 
 £4 to £4 10*. 
 
 (10) Confessions of a Yoimg Man, 1888. At Puttick's 
 (June 15, 1921) a presentation copy, with autograph 
 inscription by the author, realized £18. Another presenta- 
 tion copy (Hodgson's, March 5,1920) realized £22. Value 
 of an ordinary copy about £10 to £12. 
 
 (11) Spring Days, 1888. First issues in the correct 
 binding are very rare. Value about £3 3*. — • ^ / VO ^V^*<-^ 
 
281 
 
 (12) Mike Fletcher, 1889. A copy at Hodgson's (June 
 2, 1921) realized £5 2*. 6d 
 
 (13) Impressions and Opinions, 1891. A copy at Dowell's "^^ -jfff-^ "| 
 in Edinburgh (February 22, 1921) realized £3 12*. Qd. tO'/H*?'^^ * 
 At Hodgson's (November S, 1921) a presentation copy from rf^ _ vv.vw.'ji^ 
 the author with autograph inscription realized <£12 12*. 
 
 (U) Fain Fortune [1892\ Value about £2. 
 
 (15) Vain Fortune, Large Paper Edition \1892']. First 
 issues in white cloth are very scarce : value about £5 5*. 
 Value of second issue about <£3 3j. 
 
 (16) Modem Painting, 1893. A copy at Sotheby's (Aprif^,y Q^^u^^ ^ 
 5, 1921) realized £3 5*. ^ ^^"^ ^ 
 
 (17) The Strike at Arlingford, 1893. Value about £1. 
 
 (18) Esther Waters, 189 Jf. Copies in fine state are rare. '^"^ /(-S.^-'tv 
 Value of fine copy about £2. Copies in average condition M-<JiP ^ /^"^"^ 
 realize from £1 bs. to £1 lOs. 
 
 (19) Celibates, 1895. This book was 'remaindered' a ^T ^ ^Jav^^-^"^- 
 few years ago and is still quite common. Value 10*. Z**-"***- 
 
 to 15*. 
 
 (20) The Royal Academy 1895, \^^b. There is no record 
 of a copy having been sold at auction. The copy used for 
 the purposes of collation by the present compiler was 
 kindly lent to him by Mr. C. Millard, who listed the same 
 in his Spring 1922 Catalogue at £'2 10*. 
 
 (21) Evelyn Innes, 1898. At Hodgson's (March 5, 1920) i^% \r^^^ — ' 
 a presentation copy from the author, with autograph )^jfjU — / ^ > "3 
 inscription, realized £\2 5*. Value of an ordinary copy 
 
 about 15*. to £1. 
 
 (22) The Bending of the Bough, 1900. Value about ^^ |a..*-vm^ 
 £1 5*. for a fine copy. v^j^at-vu^ " ' 
 
 '— »a^(23) Sister Teresa, 1901. Value about 15*. to £1. 
 
 (24) The Untitled Field {in Irish) [1902]. There is no^^ ^- 
 record of a copy having occurred for sale. Probable value ' * 
 about £3. 
 
 (25) The Untilled Field, 1903. Value about 10*. to 15*. 
 
282 ^^ 
 
 (26) The Lake, 1905, Value about 10^. to 15*. /A%(r^^^*^ 
 
 (27) Kemmiscences of the Impressionist Painters^ 1906, 
 Copies at Sotheby's have reahzed £3 15*. (June 29, 1921) 
 and £4 10*. (December 13, 1920). 
 
 (28) Memoirs of My Dead Life, 1906, At Sotheby's^gij^ ; 
 (July 26, 1921) a copy realised £7 15*. ^^JUc-^*fituM -lO^fc /Q,^/; 
 
 {1^) Ave, 1911, Valueabout£2 10*."^A^;^^^6.^-^. ^Ui 
 
 (30) The Apostle, 1911, A copy at Sotheby's (April 25, il f^^ - 
 1921) realized £1 12*., but £1 \s. to £1 5*. is about theio^ ' 
 average value of the book. 
 
 (31) Salve, 1912. Value about £1 5*. Copies of the jiL ^ 
 first issue, which are extremely rare, are probably worth 4 jH^ 
 about £6 6*. / ^-^v^f^-w^ tlaiiv>M o^- jUX^T uv i icC . 
 
 (32) Esther Waters: a Play, 1913, Value about 10*. 
 
 (33) Elizabeth Cooper, 1913, Value about 15*. 
 
 (34) Vale,191Jf., Copies of the^ir*^ issue are excessively 
 rare, and no copy is known to have occurred for sale in the 
 auction rooms. £10 is a probable price for a copy. Value^t/"^ 
 of second isstie about £3 to £3 10*. The third issue is fl^^T'^ 
 common: value about 15*. '*x^-v.iv. Cv^^^.^^ ^.A iX"SJiig^0ihd Ma 
 
 (35) Muslin, 1915, Value about 10*. to 15*. Cf^^^***^ ^^t-tt^ 
 
 (36) The Brook Kerith, 1916, Value about £1 10*. to -Z^**^ 
 £2 2*. The Circulating Library issue is very scarce : nj^^^ij 
 value £3 3*. to £4 4*. ^ ' V i »f «<- •* h ^^r.y /^ -.h ^.-rv 4' - // v2 
 
 (37) The Brook Kerith, Edition de Luxe, 1916. Value V^* 
 about £8 8*. 
 
 (38) Lewis Seymour and Some Women, 1917, Value about ^% h* 
 12*. 6d to 15*. JtSj M 
 
 (39) A Story-Tellers Holiday, 1918. Value about £5 5*., 
 
 (40) Avowals, 1919. Value £4 4*. to £4 12*. ^d.^J^^j^^p^^^ 
 
 (41) Esther Waters, 1920, Value about £2 2*. 
 
 (42) The Coming of Gabrielle, 1920, Value about £1 10*. V^ /^ 
 to £1 15*. 
 
 (43) Helo'ise and Ahelard, 2 vols., 1921, A copy at 
 Sotheby's (July 22, 1921) realized £4 6*. CiUiflA^a^Arfjul' 
 
 0*. V^ v^ 
 
 U'-i'-. 
 
J 
 
 283 
 
 (44) Fragments from Heldise and Abelard, 1921. Value 
 about 5*. 
 
 (45) Memoirs of My Dead Life, 1921. Value about 
 £3 3*. to £4 4*. 
 
 (46) Piping Hot I 1885. The book is scarce in fine 
 condition. Value of fine copy £1 1*. to £1 10*. 
 
 (47) The Rusk for the Spoil, 1885. Value about 15*. 
 to £1 1*. 
 
 (48) Piping Hot ! Large Paper Illustrated Edition, 1886. 
 Very scarce. Value about £2. 
 
 (49) Poor Folk, 189^. Value about £1 5*. to £1 15*. 
 
 (50) The Heather Field and Maeve, 1899. Value about 
 £1 10*. 
 
 (51) An Irish Gentleman [191S]. Value about 7*. Qd. 
 to 10*. 
 
 (52) The Genius of the Mame, 1919. Value about 5*. to 
 7*. 6rf. 
 

 Printed in Grkat Britain by 
 
 Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, 
 
 bungay, suffolk. 
 
I