by George Moore
CHAPTER 56.
BETWEEN CLAREMORRIS AND Ballyhaunis there is nothing to attract the eye, and the people that entered my carriage and left it at Castlerea were of a class unknown in Mayo in its feudal days. It was vain to try to decipher the markings on the shells; the kind was unknown to me, and I returned to my own thoughts, remembering that when my mother lived at Moore Hall (which she did to the day of her death), she used to say, when I jumped off the car that brought me from the station: why that gloom upon your face, George? It would seem as if the sight of your own house is displeasing to you, and not wishing to distress her, I answered: you are mistaken, mother. I was thinking that more trees should have been planted to shut out the view of the lake. A frivolous answer truly, but the best that I could find in those days for a singular aversion. Why should I feel diffident? — why should I feel shy, almost ashamed, among the old places? I often asked myself. Yet that is what I do feel, and unable to find a reason to account for a feeling that seemed inveterate in me, I fell to criticising the alterations that my father had made in the house, trying to persuade myself that it was these alterations that prevented me from feeling at home at Moore Hall. The one that provoked me most was the raising of the roof some ten or a dozen feet for practical reasons, the beams no doubt having rotted under the low eighteenth-century roof. But I could not forget that the small green-mortared slates, like scales, were much more beautiful than the modern slates; large blue slates give a Georgian house the appearance of a lord mayor’s mansion-house, and only look well on a high-pitched French roof. My father substituted plate-glass windows for the small panes, with eyes in them, like grease spots on soup.... How lovely! and it was with such aesthetic reflections that I tried for many years to account for a strange aversion; as late as last year, I said, I walked up and down the platform at Athlone, seeking the reason why I was always diffident, shy, ill at ease at Moore Hall; and feeling myself nearer to apprehending a reason that had till now eluded me, I repeated the words: diffident, shy, ill at ease, ashamed, frightened, overcome by the awe that steals over one in the presence of the dead.
Moore Hall is a relic, a ruin, a corpse. Its life ceased when we left it in 1870, and I am one that has no liking for corpses. The wise man never looks on the face of a corpse, knowing well that if he does it will come between him and the living face.... That is why I am unwilling to go to Moore Hall, and why I avoid the Quartier St Georges, and the two streets leading to the Boulevard Montmartre, the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette and the Rue des Martyrs, for these streets are so intensely my past life that I should feel shy and diffident, just as I feel at Moore Hall, in intruding myself on their presence. It would be painful to me to cross the Place Pigale and to enter the café in which I used to spend my evenings of long ago with Manet, with Degas, with Pissaroo, with Renoir, with Cabaner, with Alexis, with Duranty, with Mendès. I have heard that it is now the haunt of ponces and punks, and it is well that this place should descend into animal life, for life is always ascending and descending, and the ponces and punks that assemble there to-day would shock me less if I were to enter the café than a group of modern litterateurs discussing — ah, what do they discuss? is there anything left to discuss?
I turn aside from that café and would not enter the Rue Pigale if I could avoid doing so, for however fair the moon might shine it would not shine as fairly as it did the night when I walked there with Mendès, turning to the right, making for the Rue Mansarde, where he lived with Augusta Holmes. Nor would I enter the Rue Amsterdam again, Manet forbids. Three years ago the mistress of a friend of mine asked me to dine with her, and I did not dare disclose the truth to her that I could not venture into the Rue Amsterdam. A shameful cowardice it was to accept her invitation, and my punishment began almost as soon as I crossed the threshold, and it continued all through dinner, for she lived in 73 Rue Amsterdam. Some sense of premonition propelled me at last to the window, and looking from it down into the deep courtyard I cried out: we are certainly in the house overlooking the courtyard in which Manet painted. She said: you must be mistaken, for I could not have missed hearing that so great a painter lived here once. But if you think that this house is the house, go to the concierge and ask him: which I did at once, you may be sure, and he said he had heard that a great painter once lived in the house. But that wall? I said. The wall, he answered, was built a few years ago. The courtyard is changed, I said; but is there a studio yonder? and he answered: yes, and showed me into the studio in which I had seen so many masterpieces painted, now, alas, an art class for young women.
Not another instant will I remain here! I cried; and I returned to my friend’s mistress with these verses on my lips:
Triste sous le baiser plaintif dont tu m’effleures,
Oh! combien ton baiser de jadis m’est plus cher!
Les choses du passé, ma sœur, sont les meilleures.
CHAPTER 57.
WE MUST LOVE for the sake of our remembrance of the kiss we receive, but not for it, and of all, we must not hesitate to resist whatever piercing longings rise up in us to return to the things that we loved long ago. The woman may be more beautiful and more intelligent than she was when we loved her; and the prospects that we remember are, perchance, more romantic to-day than they were when they stirred our imagination, but we must not try to return to them; we shall lose them if we do; but by our fireside we can possess them more intensely than when they were poor illusive actualities.
I can see my father more clearly to-day than I could when I was a child, shall we say, as he sat at the breakfast-table reading the newspaper, suddenly remembering the horses in the stable, and laying down the paper and going into the hall, picking up his silk hat and gloves, that a valet had carefully brushed and laid on the chair for him. I can hear him call to the red setter that has been waiting for him on the steps. I can see the great hay-ricks over against the stables and the old pine in which the goldfinches built their nests, and brighter than day now is the day when the old servant took me out one morning and showed me the nest up in a high bough. That high bough may not exist to-day; and if it hangs as it did in the sixties, it would not be as clear to me at Moore Hall as it is by my fireside in London. By my fireside in Ebury Street I can relive the delightful life of the sixties again, seeing everyone in his and her occupation, and every room unchanged, unaltered; my nursery with a print between window and door showing three wild riders leaping a wooden fence in a forest. The schoolroom overlooking the yard is before my eyes — the yard is in ruins but its homely life lives on — the old mule toiling always, bringing up water from the lake. The mule is dead, and my old governess, too, may be under the ground, but she lives in my memory and will live in it, becoming clearer day by day. It would be a misfortune truly to meet her, for no longer would I be able to go with her for long walks beyond the domain out into the highroad, over Anney’s bridge; through the long bog to the next bridge, and to discover a crayfish in the brook. It is a wonderful thing to see a crayfish and not to know it is a crayfish — and to remember Primrose and Ivory, two ponies dead fifty years or more, and the day — my mother drove me to Ballyglass to see the mail coach swing round the hill-side. The coachman held the reins grandly. The guard blew the horn. Why should I go to Ballyglass or to Lough Carra? The boat with sails made out of sheets stolen out of the linen presses lies rotten, or has utterly passed away.
But if Moore Hall lives in my mind completely and independently of the house that stands on the hill-top, why do I continue to refuse to accept my agent’s advice to sell the timber? He says that a thousand pounds worth of trees can be taken out of the woods without injury to them, and if he could see into my mind, he would add: the trees that are growing to-day are not the same trees that were your wont to climb in boyhood. In fifty years a tree changes, even as a man; for better or for worse, all things change. Why, therefore, should you hesitate to fell every tree on the hill-sides, to tear the lead from the roof, to leave Moore Hall a ruin like Castle Carra? Rid yourself of Moore
Hall so that you may possess it more completely.
CHAPTER 58.
THE TRAIN PASSES on through West Meath, and I am puzzled to find an answer to Tom Ruttledge’s subtle reasoning, and am forced to plead an invincible repugnance to the felling of the trees, to the selling of furniture and pictures. No; I cannot, I cry, do what you ask; to me the removal of a chair from one room to another is a pain: any change would hurt me almost as much as the selling of the lead coffins in which my forefathers are enclosed. But even if you succeed in preserving Moore Hall unchanged for a few years, says my agent, whom I have cast for the part of the tempter, Moore Hall will certainly fall into ruin. As soon as you have gone, the trees will be felled, and the lead taken from the roof; Moore Hall will be a ruin within a very few years; for not a great many years of life lie in front of you. A fact that cannot be gainsaid; yet for some reason hidden in me, and which I may not explore, I dare not order trees to be felled at Moore Hall. You forget, Tom, that everything came out of Moore Hall: if Moore Hall had not existed I should not have existed, not as I know myself to-day, for it was Moore Hall that enabled me to go to Paris, and to sit in the Nouvelle Athènes with Manet and with Degas; to gather a literary atmosphere from Hugo, Zola, Goncourt, Banville, Mendès — and Cabaner.
CHAPTER 59.
AS THE TRAIN drew near to Mullingar, I said to myself: Moore Hall was built with Spanish gold, and it was the peasants around the house, and the peasants of Ballintubber, and several other properties that enabled me to go to Paris. It is therefore to Patsy Murphy that the Carra edition of my writings should be dedicated. A strange dedication it would seem to my readers, but if justice were weighed out evenly the Carra edition should go to Patsy Murphy, but in this world we do not get the things that are due to us; in Ireland things always take a crooked turn, and instead of dedicating the Carra edition to Patsy Murphy I have decided to dedicate it to my agent for his good offices in obtaining from Patsy Murphy, without undue coercion, the money that I so advantageously laid out in the Nouvelle Athènes. Patsy Murphy has been a patron of literature without knowing it.
CHAPTER 60.
OUTSIDE OF THE circle of your own life you are unconcerned with the fate of Moore Hall, my agent’s ghost insisted as the train passed by Maynooth, and I answered to the ghost: that is not so, for I would prolong the life of Moore Hall beyond my life if it were possible. What is Moore Hall but one of a thousand other houses built in the eighteenth century? he replied. The Nineveh into which Jonah marched for three days before he began to preach passed away so rapidly that the shepherds who fed their flocks among the ruins could not tell Xenophon the name of the bygone city. Why then, said the ghostly voice, should you trouble about Moore Hall? nobody will live there again. It is true, I answered him; time overtakes the most enduring monuments, but men continue to build, for they are created with that intention, and every day we strive against death. Why then should it be very foolish of me to dream of Moore Hall as a hostel for parsons and curates when I am among the gone? The Irish Protestant Church is very dear to me, and Moore Hall might serve as a token of my admiration of a Protestantism that has given to Ireland all our great men and our Anglo-Irish literature. In conversation with Hugh Lane I once said: I will leave my Impressionist pictures to Moore Hall, if you will include some pictures; together we might found a museum that would attract pilgrims. But Hugh Lane, who was something of a sciolist, answered that a museum was useless unless some hundreds of people visited it daily. Three appreciative visitors, I said, are better than a crowd of holiday starers. At this Lane giggled, but his prejudice in favour of the starer did not relax. Hugh Lane was undoubtedly something of a sciolist. But we are not yet at the end of our imaginations. Another destiny than a clerical hostel might be devised for Moore Hall; a rich American might buy my house. Ireland is nearer America than England, and sooner or later Galway will become a Transatlantic port. A steamer plies from Galway to Cong. Cong is but a few miles away from Moore Hall, why should not some rich American take the place from me? and may this book fall into his hands and inspire him to do so.
CHAPTER 61.
THE TRAIN PASSES into Dublin, and I remember that if I hasten I may catch the train to Kingstown, and cross to-night. Why wait a day in Dublin? Let me hurry to my fireside in Ebury Street. And an hour later I am leaning over the taffrail watching the wake of the ship as she pierces the waveless Irish Sea.
It is the past that explains everything, I say to myself. It is in our sense of the past that we find our humanity, and there are no moments in our life so dear to us as when we lean over the taffrail and watch the waters we have passed through. The past tells us whence we have come and what we are, and it was well that I refused to allow the trees to be felled, for sitting by my fireside in Ebury Street I should hear the strokes of the axe in my imagination as plainly as I should if I were living in Moore Hall, and the ghosts of the felled trees would gather about my arm-chair in Ebury Street.
Heloise and Abelard
Heloise and Abelard was first of all privately published in London by Cumann Sean-eolais na Heinemann in 1921, but later taken up by mainstream publishers such as Heinemann in the 1920’s. Moore had initially wanted to dedicate the book to his long term lover, Lady Maud Cunard. She flatly refused to be publicly acknowledged in this way, so Moore had to content himself with a dedication to “Lady X”.
Moore’s retelling of the famous tale of Heloise and Abelard takes their story from their first meeting to their final separation; in history, Heloise d’Argenteuil (d. 1164) was the pupil of Peter Abelard (1079-1142), a French philosopher and theologian. At the time of their first meeting, Abelard was already an eminent thinker of his day, usually found surrounded by crowds of admiring pupils, whilst Heloise, an academic young woman, was in the care of her uncle, Fulbert, in the vicinity of Notre Dame in Paris. Abelard applied for a place in Fulbert’s household and in c.1115, he began an affair with Heloise. Heloise’s uncle protested, but the affair continued in secret and resulted in the birth of a son, Astrolabe. The rest of their story is a matter of historical record and much recounted in a variety of fictional genres.
Moore’s version of the tale opens when Heloise is ten years old, entrusted along with her frail mother, by her father Philippe to his brother, Canon Fulbert. Fulbert lives in the Rue des Chantres, at Notre Dame in Paris. Philippe is to travel to join the Crusades against the Infidel and Fulbert is uneasy about his new responsibility as he is set in his ways, being of the considerable age of fifty years (a good age in the twelfth century). Sadly, Heloise’s mother dies within days of arriving at Notre Dame and Fulbert decides to send the child to be brought up in a convent, which he hopes will prepare her for a cloistered life and relieve him of the care of the child — with her father now also killed in the Crusades, Fulbert must take sole responsibility for Heloise’s future.
The story moves swiftly forward six years and Fulbert has a vision of his brother, which he interprets as telling him that Heloise must not live her life shut away in a convent and he therefore sends his maid to collect her. Fulbert is pleasantly surprised when he meets his niece again; the petite young woman has a scholarly air to her, with “grey, wistful eyes that tell a tale of learning.” She quickly requests a table at which to study and the loan of his books; to his surprise, Fulbert begins to relax in the girl’s company, reminiscing about her father and he is excited to find out just how promising a scholar she is, encouraging her to read Virgil and other classical works and extending her stay so that she may study. Heloise is able to meet students who call at her uncle’s house and with her keen intellect can make the most of listening to their philosophical discourse.
Eventually, Heloise encounters Abelard, whose towering reputation as a great thinker she was already aware of. She is not impressed by what she sees — he is a short, stocky man in his late thirties, with dark hair and serious eyes — and Heloise likes “merry eyes”. As in the historical records, Abelard is surrounded by admirers and Heloise feels that
he is holding court like a nobleman. However, she is overcome with admiration for Abelard when she listens to him teach and debate and throws herself at his feet. Back home, she presses her uncle for information about the philosopher and is stunned and excited when Abelard writes to her, inviting her to meet with him. The meeting is a success; Abelard treats her well and they talk for some time. Soon after, Heloise is overjoyed to hear that Abelard is to become her tutor and they will not only learn together, but will meet every day — a meeting of intellects certainly, but also of hearts…
This retelling of a famous love affair is pleasantly told, with the added touch of Moore’s own quirks — no quote marks and he continues his use of thee and thou in the narrative, something he started using in Brook Kerith and a feature that is easy to adapt to. It does not detract from the story and for some it will even add to the charm, in the guise of a bardic tale told to a live audience. The characters are well drawn and appealing, including Madelon, Fulbert’s maid of all work; there are many delightful scenes of medieval life and of Parisian life in particular.
The first edition’s title page
CONTENTS
VOLUME I.
A MADAME X
CHAP. I.
CHAP. II.
CHAP. III.
CHAP. IV.
CHAP. V.
CHAP. VI.
CHAP. VII.
