by George Moore
CHAPTER 1.
THE IRISH MAIL passes out of Euston Station with the easy movement of a deep, smooth river, or of a reptile gliding over soft grass, and the feeling of contentment and well-being, almost of happiness, produced by the vague rhythm of the train is augmented by the beauty of the fields and their hedgerows unfolding mile after mile under the languor of a June sunset. And all this while the traveller perceives the elms showing fine design on the fading day, rising out of the may with noble gesture, almost like sculpture, he murmurs, as he yields himself to admiration of the trees advancing and retiring, forming into groups at the corners of the fields and collecting into woods on the hill-sides. And no sooner have they collected themselves into woods, he says, than they disperse to gather themselves again into thickets, shaws and copses. Going to Ireland, he continues, is like travelling through a forest with clearings in it. The word forest, however, does not satisfy him; it is too evocative of wild and uncouth nature such as we have not here, he adds. A chase, perhaps, but even a chase conveys an idea of almost wild landscape, and this one is deliberately wooded; it is a well-ordered domain through which the train carries us like a smooth river. And the feeling of contentment and well-being, almost of happiness, that began to take possession of him soon after the train left London returns now exalted by what remains of the sunset; a faint flush seen through grey clouds; a bygone sunset, the traveller remarks, taking pleasure in the words. We pursue the sunset, he mutters to himself, and, amused by the thought that himself and his fellow-travellers are raiders in pursuit of the sunset’s gold, he begins to dream a romantic fable, and the paragraphs end so prettily in his dream that he thinks he has written the story, and experiences on arriving at Rugby some faint surprise when the newspaper boy does not offer to sell him a book entitled Sunset’s Gold, with his name upon it — just published, sir.
The dreaming traveller is none other, O reader, than thy friend George Moore, come to entertain thee once more; and having robbed the sunset’s gold, reader, we are now flying through the night, pursued by the Dawn, who would recover the gold robbed of her sister. Thou’lt forgive this attempt to entertain thee with a literary sequel as false as such things usually are, and thou shalt not be imposed upon. Between London and Rugby we did seem like travellers in pursuit of the sunset, but when the train rolled out of Rugby we became commonplace travellers on our way to Dublin, myself ashamed of my fable, at least of the second part of it, and glad to know that nobody need ever hear anything about it, not even my publisher.
The evening paper was opened, but it proved itself to be so eventless that I was compelled into a deep scrutiny of the man sitting opposite to me, but despite my study of him, he has passed out of my mind I fear for ever. All I can recall in present time is a tall man of rather common appearance, who spoke with a brogue and told me that he travelled for — Again my memory is at fault, I cannot remember if he was in the dry goods or the whisky line, but am persuaded that our conversation began with: I hope, sir, we shall have a fine crossing.
Of course, I answered, we shall have a fine crossing, how can you doubt it? At which my fellow-traveller’s face became overcast, and after a pause he said: may I ask, sir, why you’re sure we shall have a fine crossing? Because I am I, an alarm-provoking remark that I sought to quieten later, saying that having crossed the Irish Sea so many times without seeing anything like a wave I had come to regard the Irish Sea as waveless. Elsewhere there are waves, no doubt; we read of waves in the newspapers and in books, and my friends have spoken to me about waves, but so far as my own experience goes waves do not exist. And after all, I added, one must be guided by one’s own experience rather than by what one reads and hears; isn’t that so?
My fellow-traveller looked at me inquiringly, and as if dissatisfied with his examination of my face returned to his newspaper. But soon after I began to notice that he was watching me again over the rims of his spectacles, and like one who is unable to conquer his curiosity he said: I believe you when you say that the Irish Sea is always calm when you cross it, and that you have crossed it some hundreds of times, but will you tell me what conclusion you draw from the uninterrupted good luck which has attended you? I answered that I submitted the facts to him and that it was for him to draw conclusions, and he asked me if he would have my approval if he concluded from the facts before him that the sea did not wish to destroy me. On the contrary, I answered. The sea is kind to those whom it has selected to destroy. My life will end in the sea, but not necessarily in the Irish Sea. It is a relief, however, in a way to know what one’s end will be. Have you never received tidings?
My fellow-traveller returned to his newspaper and it was some time before he made another remark. You believe then, sir, that life and death is determined at birth and that none can escape his fate? Before I can answer you I must ask if you’re a Protestant or a Catholic. But it doesn’t matter which, in either case you believe that not a sparrow falls to the ground without it is His will. Isn’t that so? He answered that he believed God to be all-knowing, and again returned to his paper. At Crewe, however, he laid it aside and poked his head out of the window. I think you’re right, sir, we shall have a fine crossing. Didn’t I tell you, sir, that there are no waves when I cross the Irish Channel? You’re unbelieving and incredulous, yet you wear the credulous Catholic face.
As my fellow-traveller admitted himself to be a Catholic it seemed to me pleasing to relate that Protestantism and Catholicism were founded the same day at Antioch, and till the Menai Bridge interrupted my narrative, I made plain the differences that existed between Peter and Paul. But as no trace of the objections he raised to my theology between the Menai Tunnel and Holyhead is discoverable, however diligently I searched my memory, I presume that we wearied a little of each other during the journey across Anglesea: or else we became so absorbed by the beauty of the twilight that we forgot Peter and Paul, as excellent a thing to do as it is to remember them, for had it not been for Peter and Paul I might not have been able to abandon myself wholeheartedly to the beauty of the almost transparent veil that falls across the sky in June, dividing night from day by not more than two or three hours, and to the almost equal beauty of the twilit sea.
In another hour the first gulls will be flying around us, I said to myself, and sat with my eyes fixed on the east till I beheld bars of silver and a great phantom ship looming through the dusk. The night, I said, has begun to evaporate like a pale curl of blue smoke; it was not much more, I added, and dropped into dreams of the romance of sails rising, yard after yard, the topgallant yard melting into clouds and the sails drawing the great ship charged with many destinies away, whither? Perhaps to end by the firing of a German torpedo. At these words I felt for the tube whereby my life-belt was inflated, saying, and saying well: if we be torpedoed I have as good a chance to be saved as another, for as soon as the torpedo crashes into us I shall blow out the life-belt and shall be picked up in not less than an hour or two of immersion in the cool sea, somewhat exhausted but alive.
CHAPTER 2.
IT MUST HAVE been soon after this pleasing thought that the gentleman in the dry goods or the whisky line who had travelled with me from Rugby took the seat beside me, and began: well, sir, as is usual the sea is waveless, and I answered him that if he wished it to be waveless when he returned he had better return with me. The suggestion seemed to appeal to him, but from a certain embarrassment in his manner I judged that he was minded to put a question.
Have you ever been for a long sea voyage? he asked, and I answered him that I had never been across the Atlantic, but that I had been six days out to sea from Marseilles to Port Said. And never seen a wave? he inquired. At most a slight swell, a wave implies a white crest, I replied, and seeing that he was not averse from hearing an account of my voyage I began to tell a dream that murmured in me ever since my father took me on his knee to tell me his travels. As far back as I can remember, I said, the Mediterranean has appeared always in my imagination as the bluest of seas an
d as the birthplace of all beautiful legends and stories. The bluest and beautifullest of seas, I said, hoping to cow my fellow-traveller with alliteration. But he was eager for some information regarding Marseilles, and I told him briefly of the strange white shore that we sailed past, chalk cliff or salt, ghostly shores, I said, on which nothing grows. A rabbit could not pick up a living, I interjected. But weren’t you curious to know if it was a promontory or an island that you sailed past? I had no mind for geographical details, I was thinking of Sicily, for it was in Sicily that rugged Polyphemus peering over some cliffs discerned Galatea in the foam, and it was on the Plain of Enna that Proserpine was raped while gathering flowers with her maidens; but none of my fellow-travellers could be persuaded to listen to these stories, and I swore that when I descended to the dusky halls where she sat beside Pluto I should not forget to bring her a bunch of asphodels to remind her of this world’s beauty, almost forgotten by her. None, I continued, had a thought for these beautiful legends; they were interested to see a vulgar volcano eruptive on the horizon. I begged of them to remember that we should soon be passing the very place where Jupiter disguised in the form of a bull carried away Europa for his pleasure and for hers. But you, sir, are perhaps as indifferent to these stories as they, yet the garlanded bull, stemming the waves, Europa keeping her seat on one shoulder by the help of a horn, the sea nymphs singing hymns and throwing their tresses for joy in the air while Tritons blew conch shells, was a finer sight than a volcano. But, said my companion, you don’t believe in these legends? Nobody knows what he believes, I replied, and nothing is certain but our attachment to the legends that represent our ideas and help us to live. Moreover do not all mythologies rely upon the union of divinity with the mortal; and does not Deity in all the mythologies take the form of some beast or bird? In one story the Deity is a bull, in another an eagle, in a third a dove, two women at least were trodden by birds. I looked into my companion’s eyes and waited for an outburst. But he sat unmoved. Have I said anything that seems unreasonable to you? I asked. I’m thinking, he rejoined, that you’ll not find many in Ireland that will appreciate the stories you’ve been telling me.
You’re not going there preaching, are you? for if you are be advised by me and turn back. No, I answered, I’m not going to preach anything. Then you’re going to Ireland to see the ruins? And I answered that I always took an interest in ruins wherever I might find them and that it was for its ruins that we all loved Ireland. And this remark led us straight into the Ulster question.
Without Ulster, my companion said, there can be no Home Rule, and I asked him if he could tell me why the Catholics were so anxious to get Ulster, and if he could explain how Ireland could be free if Ulster was to be coerced. My fellow-traveller stiffly repudiated any desire on the part of the Nationalist Party for help to coerce Ulster, and begged me to believe that the National Party only desired Ulster because Home Rule would be impossible without Ulster. Neither coercion nor cajolery, he cried; let them come in like men and help us to build a new Ireland. We became strenuous, and continued strenuous till I began to perceive we were missing the sunrise. The dawn is breaking, I said; tell me if you think there are tones as beautiful as those flower-like blues on any painter’s palette, or a rose as pure as those little puffy clouds like Cupids. I agree with you, he replied; but without Ulster there can be no Home Rule; we must have a business head.
Let us not talk of Home Rule, but admire the morning sun. And now a word of advice: if Roman Catholics could think more of the sunrise and less about Ulster there might be a sunrise in Ireland. Look, I said, how the sun flashes above the horizon. You don’t believe then, he asked, that through a rising tide of discontent Mr. Asquith will bring about a settlement? You’ll have to define the word settlement before I can answer you, I said. Nothing is ever settled in this world. Everything is becoming. We can have no knowledge of anything, for nothing in this world is permanent, unless talk. In Ireland talk is permanent and yet — But I have no wish to criticise, I withdraw that last remark. And you’ll do well to withdraw the remark you made about Mr. Asquith who visited a hospital and addressing himself to a wounded Sinn Feiner said: what do you think now of the rebellion? The wounded boy’s answer was: well, I think it was a grand success. And why do you think that? was the unabashed Minister’s next question. Well, sir, because you’re here. You must admit that the Irish have not lost their wit? But are you sure that the boy’s answer did not come out of an innocent heart? I inquired, and my fellow-traveller no doubt gave an answer, but it must have been a flat one else I should have remembered it, and bidding my fellow-traveller good-bye I said to myself: I’ll consult the jarvey that drives me from the station.
What will content you? I asked.
Sure we don’t want to be contented, he replied, and it seemed to me that he had, unwittingly, expressed a human feeling.
CHAPTER 3.
A FEW HOURS later the young doctor who supplies Dublin with jokes entertained me on the steps of the Shelbourne Inn with his views, telling me that it was the rebellion in Dublin that had given the English army a chance of redeeming its credit. In every other encounter it has come off second-best, he said, but in Dublin it can claim a victory, a plausible set-off for the defeat of Kut. He, too, represents another phase of the Irish mind, the one that sees a joke or an epigram in all circumstances, thereby contriving to survive an habitual discontent. But are there no ruins in Stephen’s Green? I asked, and he told me the finest were to be seen in Sackville Street, adding, that the oven changes many an ugly carcass into a sweet-smelting roast. The oven improves us all — houses as well as men and beasts, fishes and birds, and potatoes are better baked than boiled. Good-bye till dinner-time. And after dinner? I said, I will go to see the ruins; they will be looking their best after sunset, I interjected, catching something of my host’s flippancy.
But dinner was prolonged with conversation until the moon rose, and then, remembering a phrase of Balzac’s, “In the moonlight the Place de la Bourse is a dream of old Greece,” I said to myself: ruins are best by moonlight. But my host continued to talk on many subjects till long after midnight, and the moon was waning and The Irish Times was printing when I reached the Liffey and saw the great skeleton façades lifting themselves up in the night.
Many of the buildings, the Imperial Hotel and the Post Office, appeared at first sight uninjured, but at second sight it was plain that they were but empty shells. I shall have, I said, to wait for the sunrise to see these ruins. At present they are but phantoms, a city that has passed away — shapeless mounds that might be of Babylon. I shall have to wait for another hour for some traces of Dublin to appear, ruined portico or broken column, which? But martial law still prevails, I continued, and arrest, though it lasts but a minute, is unpleasant. I will adjourn to the office of The Irish Times and write paragraphs till dawn; and though rubble heaps afford but slight pasture for the picturesque pen, it may be that I shall discover something. Nature is so various that I cannot fail to find something unexpected and significant if I search long enough. Even if the space in to-morrow’s paper be filled he might like an article — on what? I asked myself. And in the hope that a subject would come into my mind while talking I went upstairs unabashed (the editors of Irish papers receive visitors while waiting for proofs), and it was not till one o’clock that I began to notice that the editor began to weary of conversation. My proofs are late to-night, he said, but they cannot be long delayed; and the finest ruins are beyond Rutland Square. You might walk around that way; and his last advice to me was to look out for a building that had been shelled near Amiens Street Station.
Ten minutes’ walk took me there. But how am I to describe picturesquely a wall twenty feet high by forty feet long with a hole in it? I asked myself, and returned to Henry Street wondering what the descriptive reporters attached to the newspapers had written about the ruins. They can describe anything, even a boat race, I said; it’s their business. And it was while thinking about their art
and Marius among the ruins of Carthage that I escaped as by a miracle from falling into a cellar in which I should certainly have died, discovered by my stench at the end of a week, and whoever found me would go back to the office of the Times with excellent copy. A lugubrious story truly of a reporter who died in a cellar in Henry Street, and one that soon changed to a story of a reporter who committed suicide amid the ruins because he could not describe them. Not being able to produce copy he became copy, I said, and I’m minded to follow his example, for have I not promised to write an article and up to the present have discovered only a strip of wall-paper hanging from a ruined wall which I could have seen in London any day: pathetic, no doubt, but poor pasturage for the picturesque pen. All the same, the mantelpiece up above is a fine specimen; and with much literary sympathy I fell to examining a broken mantelpiece over which hung an overmantel, its mirror still intact and a piece of ornamental crockery and a little French clock still upon its shelves. Here is my symbol, I said, somewhat commonplace, but the best I shall find. A pleasant home, no doubt it once was, and in my imagination I saw a family collected round the fender after the evening meal, mother reading a tale from a popular magazine to the children, the cat purring upon her knees. A somewhat commonplace subject for an article, I said, but one that will please the readers of The Irish Times. A plaintive “Miaw” reached me, and a beautiful black Persian cat appeared by the fireplace. A cat is almost articulate, and Tom asked me to explain to him the meaning of all this ruin. He has found his old fireplace, I said, and tried to entice him; but, though pleased to see me, he would not be persuaded to leave what remained of the hearth on which he had spent so many pleasant hours, and pondering on his faithfulness and his beauty I continued my search among the ruins, meeting cats everywhere, all seeking their lost homes among the ashes and all unable to comprehend the misfortune that had befallen them. It is true that the cats suffer vaguely, but suffering is not less because it is vague, and it seemed to me that in the early ages of the world, shall we say twenty thousand years before Pompeii and Herculaneum, men groped and suffered blindly amid incomprehensible earthquakes seeking their lost homes, just like the cats in Henry Street. We are part and parcel of the same original substance, I said, and then my thoughts breaking off suddenly, I began to rejoice in Nature’s unexpectedness and fecundity. She is never commonplace in her stories, we have only to go to her to be original, I muttered, as I returned through the silent streets. I could have imagined everything else, the wall-paper, the overmantel, and the French clock, but not the cats seeking for their lost hearths, nor is it likely that Turgenieff could, Balzac still less.
