Complete Works of George Moore

by George Moore

  We went by a manufacturing town, and there must have been mines underneath the fields, for the ground sagged, and there were cinder-heaps among the rough grass. Conway Castle was passed; it reminded me of the castles of my own country, and Anglesey reminded me of the Druids. Yeats had told me that the Welsh Druids used to visit their brethren in Ireland to learn the deeper mysteries of their craft. Pictures rose up in my mind of these folk going forth in their galleys, whether plied with oar or borne by sail I knew not; and I would have crossed the sea in a ship rather than in a steamer. It was part of my design to sit under a sail and be the first to catch sight of the Irish hills. But the eye of the landsman wearies of the horizon, and it is possible that I went below and ordered the steward to call me in time; and it is also possible that I rolled myself up in a rug and sat on the deck, though this be not my ordinary way of travelling; but having no idea at the time of writing this book, no notes were taken, and after the lapse of years details cannot be discovered.

  But I do remember myself on deck watching the hills now well above the horizon, asking myself again if Ireland were going to appear to me small as a pig’s back or a land of extraordinary enchantment? It was the hills themselves that reminded me of the legend — on the left, rough and uncomely as a drove of pigs running down a lane, with one tall hill very like the peasant whom I used to see in childhood, an old man that wore a tall hat, knee-breeches, worsted stockings, and brogues. Like a pig’s back Ireland has appeared to me, I said; but soon after on my right a lovely hill came into view, shapen like a piece of sculpture and I said: Perhaps I am going to see Ireland as an enchanted isle after all.

  While I was debating which oracle I should accept, the steamer churned along the side of the quay, where I expected, if not a deputation, at least some friends to meet me; but no one was there, though a telegram had been sent to Yeats and Edward informing them of my journey. And as there was nobody on the platform at Westland Row to receive me, I concluded that they were waiting at the Shelbourne Hotel. But I entered that hotel as any stranger from America might, unknown, unwelcomed, and it was with a sinking heart that I asked vainly if Edward had left a note for me, an invitation to dine with him at his club. He had forgotten. He never thinks of the gracious thing to do, not because he is unkind, but because he is a little uncouth. He will be glad to see me, I said, when we meet. All the same, it seemed to me uncouth to leave me to eat a solitary table-d’hôte dinner when I had come over in his honour. And chewing the casual food that the German waiters handed me, I meditated the taunts that I would address to him about the friar whose advice he had sought in London, and whose advice he had not followed. He runs after his soul like a dog after his tail, and lets it go when he catches it, I muttered as I went down the street, to angry to admire Merrion Square, beautiful under the illumination of the sunset, making my way with quick, irritable steps towards the Antient Concert Rooms, whither the hall-porter had directed me, and finding them by a stone-cutter’s yard. Angels and crosses! A truly suitable place for a play by Edward Martyn, I said. The long passage leading to the rooms seemed to be bringing me into a tomb. Nothing very renascent about this, I said, pushing my way through the spring doors into a lofty hall with a balcony and benches down the middle, and there were seats along the walls placed so that those who sat on them would have to turn their heads to see the stage, a stage that had been constructed hurriedly by advancing some rudely painted wings and improvising a drop-curtain.

  There is something melancholy in the spectacle of human beings enjoying themselves, but the melancholy of this dim hall I had never seen before, except in some of Sickert’s pictures: the loneliness of an audience, and its remoteness as it sits watching a small illuminated space where mummers are moving to and fro reciting their parts.

  And it is here that Edward thinks that heresy will flourish and put mischief into men’s hearts, I thought, and searched for him among the groups, finding him not; but Yeats was there, listening reverentially to the sound of his verses. He went away as soon as the curtain fell, returning just before the beginning of the next act, his cloak and his locks adding, I thought, to the melancholy of the entertainment. His intentness interested me so much that I did not venture to interrupt it. His play seemed to be going quite well, but in the middle of the last act some people came on the stage whom I did not recognise as part of the cast, and immediately the hall was filled with a strange wailing, intermingled with screams; and now, being really frightened, I scrambled over the benches, and laying my hand upon Yeats’s shoulder begged him to tell me what was happening. He answered, The caoine — the caoine. A true caoine and its singers had been brought from Galway. From Galway! I exclaimed. You miserable man! and you promised me that the play should be performed as it was rehearsed. Instead of attending to your business you have been wandering about from cabin to cabin, seeking these women.

  Immediately afterwards the gallery began to howl, and that night the Antient Concert Rooms reminded me of a cats’ and a dogs’ home suddenly merged into one. You see what you have brought upon yourself, miserable man! I cried in Yeats’s ear. It is not, he said, the caoine they are howling at, but the play itself. But the play seemed to be going very well, I interjected, failing to understand him. I want to hear the Countess’s last speech — I’ll tell you after.

  A man must love his play very much, I thought, to be able to listen to it in such distressing circumstances. He did not seem to hear the cat-calls, and when the last lines had been spoken he asked if I had seen The Cross or the Guillotine. Wasn’t it put into your hand as you came into the theatre? And while walking to the hotel with me he told me that the author of this pamphlet was an old enemy of his. All the heresies in The Countess Cathleen were quoted in the pamphlet, and the writer appealed to Catholic feeling to put a stop to the blasphemy. Last night, Yeats said, we had to have the police in, and Edward, I am afraid, will lose heart; he will fear the scandal and may stop the play. He spoke not angrily of Edward as I should have done, but kindly and sympathetically, telling me that I must not forget that Edward is a Catholic, and to bring a play over that shocks people’s feelings is a serious matter for him. The play, of course, shocks nobody’s feelings, but it gives people an opportunity to think their feelings have been shocked, and it gives other people an opportunity of making a noise; and Yeats told me how popular noise was in Ireland, and controversy, too, when accompanied with the breaking of chairs. But I was too sad for laughter, and begged him to tell me more about the friar whom Edward had consulted in London, and whose theology had not been accepted, perhaps because Gill had advised Edward that the friar’s opinion was only a single opinion, no better and no worse than any other man’s. It appeared that Gill had held out a hope to Edward that opinions regarding The Countess Cathleen, quite different from the friar’s, might be discovered, and I more or less understood that Gill’s voice is low and musical, that he had sung Hush-a-by baby on the tree top; but a public scandal might awaken the baby again. And send it crying to one of the dignitaries of the Church, and so it may well be that we have seen the last of The Countess Cathleen.

  Yeats seemed to take the matter very lightly for one whom I had seen deeply interested in the play, and I begged him to explain everything — himself, Edward, the friar, and above all, Ireland.

  In Ireland we don’t mean all we say, that is your difficulty, and he began to tell of the many enemies his politics had made for him, and in a sort of dream I listened, hearing for the hundredth time stories about money that had been collected, purloined, information given to the police, and the swearing of certain men to punish the traitors with death. I was told how these rumoured assassinations had reached the ears of Miss Gonne, and how she and Yeats had determined to save the miscreants; and many fabulous stories of meetings in West Kensington, which in his imagination had become as picturesque as the meetings of Roman and Venetian conspirators in the sixteenth century. A few years before Miss Gonne had proclaimed ‘98 to a shattering accompaniment of glass
in Dame Street, Yeats walking by her, beholding divinity. We have all enjoyed that dream. If our lady be small we see her with a hand-mirror in her boudoir, and if she be tall as an Amazon, well, then we see her riding across the sky hurling a javelin. And the stars! We have all believed that they could tell us everything if they only would; and we have all gone to some one to cast our horoscopes. So why jeer at Yeats for his humanities? We have all been interested in the Rosicrucians — Shelley our van-bird. Yeats knew all their strange oaths, and looked upon himself as an adept. Even the disastrous pamphlet could not make him utterly forget Jacob Boehm, and we spoke of this wise man, going up Merrion Street — a dry subject, but no subject is dry when Yeats is the talker. Go on, Yeats, I said — go on, I like to listen to you; you believe these things because Miss Gonne believes herself to be Joan of Arc, and it is right that a man should identify himself with the woman he admires. Go on, Yeats — go on talking; I like to hear you.

  After some further appreciation of Jacob Boehm we returned to the pamphlet.

  It is all very sad, Yeats, I said, but I cannot talk any more tonight. Tomorrow — tomorrow you can come to see me, and we will talk about Edward and The Cross or the Guillotine.

  III

  WHEN THE BOOTS asked me in the morning if I would like to have my water ‘otted, it seemed to me that I was back in London; but the bareness of the hotel bedroom soon stimulated my consciousness, and with a pang yesterday returned to me — its telegram, its journey, and the hissing of The Countess Cathleen in the Antient Concert Rooms.

  I haven’t been shown Ireland as a land of endless enchantment, I said, turning over, and perhaps the wisest thing for me to do would be to go away by the morning boat. But the morning boat was already in the offing; word should have been left overnight that I was to be called at seven. An impulsive departure would be in strict keeping with myself ... a note for Yeats, enclosing a paragraph to be sent to the papers: Mr George Moore arrived in Dublin for the performance of The Countess Cathleen, but the hissing of the play so shocked his artistic sensibilities that he could not bide another day in Dublin, and went away by the eight o’clock boat. The right thing to do, without a doubt, only I had not done it, and to go away by the eleven o’clock boat from the North Wall would not be quite the same thing. There was an evening boat at eight to consider; it would give me time to see Yeats, with whom I had an appointment, and to find out if there was stuffing enough in Edward to hold out against the scandal that this pamphlet had provoked.

  The Cross or the Guillotine. Into what land have I drifted? and slipping out of bed, I stood in pyjamas for some moments asking myself if a paragraph in the paper announcing my sudden departure would cause Ireland to blush for her disgraceful Catholicism....

  But it is difficult to be angry with Ireland on a May morning when the sun is shining, and through clouds slightly more broken than yesterday’s, but full of the same gentle, encouraging light — dim, ashen clouds out of which a white edging rose slowly, calling attention to the bright blue, the robe that perhaps noon would wear. All about the square the old brick houses stood sunning themselves, and I could see a chimney-stack steeped in rich shadow, touched with light, and beyond it, and under it, upon an illuminated wall, the direct outline of a gable; and at the end of the streets the mountains appeared, veiled in haze, delicate and refined as The Countess Cathleen.

  A town wandering between mountain and sea, I said as I stood before my glass shaving, forgetful of Edward, for below me was Stephen’s Green, and it took me back to the beginning of my childhood, to one day when I stole away, and inspired by an uncontrollable desire to break the monotony of infancy, stripped myself of my clothes, and ran naked in front of my nurse or governess, screaming with delight at the embarrassment I was causing her. She could not take me home along the streets naked, and I had thrown my clothes out of reach into a hawthorn — cap and jacket, shirt and trousers. Since those days the Green had been turned into an ornamental park by a neighbour of mine in Mayo, and given to the public; and telling the hall-porter that if Mr Yeats called he would find me in the Green, I went out thinking how little the soul of man changes. It declares itself in the beginning, and remains with us to the end. Was this visit to Ireland any thing more than a desire to break the monotony of my life by stripping myself of my clothes and running ahead a naked Gael, screaming Brian Boru?

  There is no one in the world that amuses one as much as oneself. Whoever is conscious of his acts cannot fail to see life as a comedy and himself as an actor in it; but the faculty of seeing oneself as from afar does not save a man from his destiny. In spite of his foreseeing he is dragged on to the dreaded bourne like an animal, supposing always that animals do not foresee. But a spring morning will not tolerate thought of destiny, and of dreaded bournes. A glow of sunlight catches our cheeks, and we begin to think that life is a perfect gift, and that all things are glad to be alive. Our eyes go to the horse between the shafts; he seems to munch in his nosebag, conscious of the goodness of the day, and the dogs bark gaily and run, delighted with the world, interested in everything. The first thing I saw on entering the Green was a girl loosening her hair to the wind, and following her down a sunny alley, I found myself suddenly by a brimming lake curving like some wonderful caligraphy round a thickly planted headland, the shadows of some great elms reflected in the water, and the long, young leaves of the willow sweeping the surface. The span of a stone bridge hastened my steps, and leaning over the parapet I stood enchanted by the view of rough shores thickly wooded, and high rocks down which the water came foaming to linger in a quiet pool. I enjoyed standing on the bridge, feeling the breeze that came rustling by, flowing through me as if I were plant or cloud. The water-fowl beguiled me; many varieties of ducks, green-headed sheldrakes, beautiful, vivacious teal hurried for the bread that the children were throwing, and over them a tumult of gulls passed to and fro; the shapely little black-headed gull, the larger gull whose wings are mauve and whose breast is white, and a herring gull, I think, its dun-coloured porpoise-like body hanging out of great wings. Whither had they come? From their nests among the cliffs of Howth? Anyhow, they are here, being fed by children and admired by me.... A nurse-maid rushes forward, a boy is led away screaming; and wondering what the cause of his grief might be, I went in quest of new interests, finding one in an equestrian statue that ornamented the centre of the Green. There were parterres of flowers about it, and in the shadow people of all ages sat half asleep, half awake, enjoying the spring morning like myself; perhaps more than I did, they being less conscious of their enjoyment.

  My mood being sylvan, I sought the forest, and after wandering for some time among the hawthorns, came upon a nook seemingly unknown to anybody but a bee that a sweet scent had tempted out of the hive. The insect was bustling about in the lilac bloom, reminding me that yesterday the crocuses were coming; and though they are ugly flowers, like cheap crockery, it was a sad surprise to find them over, and daffodils nodding in woods already beginning to smell rooky. And the rooks. How soon they had finished building! Before their eggs were hatched the hyacinths were wasting and the tulips opening — the pale yellow tulip which I admire so much, and the purple tulip which I detest, for it reminds me of an Arab drapery that I once used to see hanging out of a shop in the Rue de Rivoli. But the red tulip with yellow stripes is as beautiful as a Chinese vase, and it is never so beautiful as when it is growing among a bed of forget-me-nots — the tall feudal flower swaying over the lowly forget-me-nots, well named, indeed, for one can easily forget them. And thinking of Gautier’s sonnet, Moi, je suis la tulipe, une fleur de Hollande, I remembered that lilies would succeed the tulips, and after the lilies would come roses, and then carnations. A woman once told me that all that goes before is a preliminary, a leading up to the carnation. After them are dahlias, to be sure, and I love them, but the garden is over in September, and the year declines into mist and shortening days and those papery flowers, ugly as the mops with which the coachmen wash carriage-wheels. A
ll the same, this much can be said in praise of the winter months, that they are long, and sorrow with us, but the spring passes by, mocking us, telling us that the flowers return as youthful as last year’s, but we....

  I wandered on, now enchanted by the going and coming of the sun, one moment implanting a delicious warmth between my shoulder-blades, and at the next leaving me cold, forgetful of Yeats until I saw him in his black cloak striding in a green alley, his gait more than ever like a rook’s. But the simile that had once amused me began to weary me from repetition, and resolving to banish it from my mind for evermore, I listened to him telling that he had been to the Kildare Street Club without finding Edward. Mr Martyn had gone out earlier than usual that morning, the hall-porter had said, and I growled out to Yeats: Why couldn’t he came to see the tulips in the Green instead of bustling off in search of a theologian ... listening to nonsense in some frowsy presbytery? The sparrows, Yeats! How full of quarrel they are! And now they have all gone away into that thorn-bush!

  By the water’s edge we met a willing duck pursued by two drakes — a lover and a moralist. In my good nature I intervened, for the lover was being hustled off again and again, but mistaking the moralist for the lover, I drove the lover away, and left the moralist, who feeling that he could not give the duck the explanation expected from him, looked extremely vexed and embarrassed. And this little incident seemed to me full of human nature, but Yeats’s thoughts were far above nature that morning, and he refused to listen, even when a boy pinched a nurse-maid and she answered his rude question very prettily with — she would be badly off without one.