Complete Works of George Moore

by George Moore

  But the five minutes I had spent in that drawing-room in West Kensington were not forgotten; and now by the side of the lake, hearing Yeats explain the meaning of his metaphysical pirate afloat on Northern waters, it seemed to me that I was listening again to my Indian. Again I found myself raised above the earth into the clouds; once more the light was playing round me, lambent light like rays, crossing and recrossing, waxing and waning, until I cried out, I’m breathing too fine air for my lungs. Let me go back. And, sitting down on a rock, I began to talk of the fish in the lake, asking Yeats if the autumn weather were not beautiful, saying anything that came into my head, for his thoughts were whirling too rapidly and a moment was required for me to recover from a mental dizziness.

  In this moment of respite, without warning, I discovered myself thinking of a coachman washing his carriage in the mews, for when the coachman washes his carriage a wheel is lifted from the ground, and it spins at the least touch of the mop, turning as fast as Yeats’s mind, and for the same reason, that neither is turning anything. I am alluding now to the last half-hour spent with Yeats, talking about his poem; and thinking of Yeats’s mind like a wheel lifted from the ground, it was impossible for my thoughts not to veer round to Edward’s slow mind, and to compare it to the creaking wheel of an ox-waggon.

  If one could only combine these two — one is an intellect without a temperament to sustain it, the other is a temperament without an intellect to guide it; and I reflected how provokingly Nature separates qualities which are essential, one to the other; and there being food for reflection in this thought, I began to regret Yeats’s presence. Very soon his mind would begin to whirl again. The slightest touch, I said, of the coachman’s mop will set it going, so I had better remain silent.

  It was then that I forgot Yeats and Edward and everything else in the delight caused by a great clamour of wings, and the snowy plumage of thirty-six great birds rushing down the lake, striving to rise from its surface. At last their wings caught the air, and after floating about the lake they settled in a distant corner where they thought they could rest undisturbed. Thirty-six swans rising out of a lake, and floating round it, and settling down in it, is an unusual sight; it conveys a suggestion of fairyland, perhaps because thirty-six wild swans are so different from the silly china swan which sometimes floats and hisses in melancholy whiteness up and down a stone basin. That is all we know of swans — all I knew until the thirty-six rose out of the hushed lake at our feet, and prompted me to turn to Yeats, saying, You’re writing your poem in its natural atmosphere. To avoid talking about the poem again, and because I am always interested in natural things, I begged him to tell me whence this flock had come, and if they were really wild swans; and he told me that they were descended originally from a pair of tame swans who had re-acquired their power of flight, and that the thirty-six flew backwards and forwards from Coole to Lough Couter, venturing farther, visiting many of the lakes of Galway and Mayo, but always returning in the autumn to Coole.

  We struck across the meadows to avoid the corner of the lake where the swans had settled, and Yeats proposed another scheme for the reconstruction of his poem, and it absorbed him so utterly that he could feel no interest in the smell of burning weeds, redolent of autumn, coming from an adjoining field. Yet it trailed along the damp meadows, rising into the dry air till it seemed a pity to trouble about a poem when Nature provided one so beautiful for our entertainment — incense of woods and faint colours, and every colour and every odour in accordance with my mood.

  How pathetic the long willow leaves seemed to me as they floated on the lake! and I wondered, for there was not a wind in the branches. So why had they fallen?... Yeats said he would row me across, thereby saving a long walk, enabling us to get to Tillyra an hour sooner than if we followed the lake’s edge. Remember, it was still day, though the moon shed a light down the vague water, but when we reached the other side the sky had darkened, and it was neither day-time nor night-time. The fields stretched out, dim and solitary and grey, and seeing cattle moving mysteriously in the shadows, I thought of the extraordinary oneness of things — the cattle being a little nearer to the earth than we, a little farther than the rocks — and I begged of Yeats to admire the mystery. But he could not meditate; he was still among his Fomorians; and we scrambled through some hawthorns over a ruined wall, I thinking of the time when masons were building that wall, and how quaint the little leaves of the hawthorns were, yellow as gold, fluttering from their stems.

  A ruined country, I said, wilderness and weed.

  Yeats knew the paths through the hazel woods, and talking of the pirate, we struck through the open spaces, decorated with here and there a thorn tree and much drooping bracken, penetrating into the silence of the blood-red beeches, startled a little when a squirrel cracked a nut in the branch above us, and the broken shells fell at our feet.

  I thought there were no squirrels in Ireland?

  Twenty years ago there was none, but somebody introduced a pair into Wexford, and gradually they have spread all over Ireland.

  This and no more would he tell me, and as we fell into another broad path, where hazels grew on either side, it seemed to me that I should have walked through those woods that evening with some quiet woman, talking of a time long ago, some love-time which had grown distinct in the mirror of the years, like the landscape in the quiet waters of the lake. But in life nothing is perfect; there are no perfect moments, or very few, and it seemed to me that I could no longer speak about Fomorians or pirates. Every combination had been tried, and my tired brain was fit for nothing but to muse on the beauty that was about me, the drift of clouds seen through the branches when I raised my head. But Yeats would not raise his eyes; he walked, his eyes fixed on the ground, still intent upon discovering some scheme of recomposition which would allow him to write his poem without much loss of the original text, and before we reached the end of the alley he delivered himself of many new arrangements, none of which it was possible for me to advise him to adopt, it differing nowise from the half a dozen which had preceded it, and in despair I ran over the story again, just as one might run one’s fingers down the keys of a piano, with this result — that in a hollow of the sloppy road which we were following he agreed to abandon the Fomorians; and discussing the harp of apple-wood, which could not be abandoned, we trudged on, myself held at gaze by the stern line of the Burran Mountains showing on our left, and the moon high above the woods of Tillyra. How much more interesting all this is than his pirate! I thought. A shadowy form passed us now and then; a peasant returning from his work, his coat slung over his shoulder; a cow wandering in front of a girl, who curtsied and drew her shawl over her head as she passed us.

  Yes, that will do, Yeats answered. I shall lose a good many beautiful verses, but I suppose it can’t be helped. Only, I don’t like your ending.

  The poem has since those days been reconstructed many times by Yeats, but he has always retained the original ending, which is, that after the massacre of the crew of the merchant galley, the Queen, who lies under the canopy when the vessel is boarded, is forced by spells, shed from the strings of a harp made of apple-wood, into a love so overwhelming for the pirate, that she consents to follow him in his quest of the ultimate kingdom in the realms of the Pole. My ending was that her fancy for the pirate should cool before his determination to go northward, and that he should bid her step over the bulwarks into the merchant galley, where the pirates were drinking yellow ale; and then, cutting the ropes which lashed the vessels together, he should hoist a sail and go away northward. But Yeats said it would be a disgraceful act to send a beautiful woman to drink yellow ale with a drunken crew in the hold of a vessel.

  So did we argue as we went towards Tillyra, the huge castle now showing aloft among the trees, a light still burning in the ivied embrasure where Edward sat struggling with the love-story of Jasper and Millicent.

  He, too, is an inferior artist; he will not yield himself to the love-story. Both of th
ese men in different ways put their personal feelings in front of their work. They are both subaltern souls. And my thoughts turned from them to contemplate the huge pile which Edward’s Norman ancestor had built in a hollow. Why in a hollow? I asked myself, for these Norman castles are generally built from hillside to hillside, and were evidently intended to overawe the country, the castles lending each other aid when wild hordes of Celts descended from the Burran Mountains; and when these raids ceased, probably in the seventeenth century, the castle’s keep was turned into stables, and a modern house run up alongside of the central tower. Ireland is covered with ruins from the fifth to the eighteenth century.

  A land of ruin and weed, I said, and began to dream again a novel that I had relinquished years ago in the Temple, till rooks rising in thousands from the beech-trees interrupted my thoughts.

  We’d better go into this wood, I said. Our shadows will seem to Edward from his casement window —

  Somewhat critical, Yeats answered; and we turned aside to talk of The Tale of a Town, Yeats anxious to know from me if there was any chance of Edward’s being able to complete it by himself, and if he would accept any of the modifications I had suggested.

  X

  THE CASTLE HALL was empty and grey, only the autumn dusk in the Gothic window; and the shuffle of the octogenarian butler sounding very dismal as he pottered across the tessellated pavement. On learning from him that Mr Martyn was still writing, I wandered from the organ into the morning-room, and sat by the fire, waiting for Edward’s footstep. It came towards me about half an hour afterwards, slow and ponderous, not at all like the step of the successful dramatist; and my suspicions that his third act was failing him were aggravated by his unwillingness to tell me about the alterations he was making in it. All he could tell me was that he had been in Maynooth last summer, and had heard the priests declaring that they refused to stultify themselves; and as the word seemed to him typical of the country he would put it frequently into the mouths of his politicians.

  How drama was to arise out of the verb, to stultify, did not seem clear, and in the middle of my embarrassment he asked me where I had been all the afternoon, brightening up somewhat when I told him that I had been to Coole. In a curious detached way he is always eager for a gossip, and we talked of Yeats and Lady Gregory for a long time, and of our walk round the lake, Edward rousing from my description of the swans to ask me where I had left the poet.

  At the gate.

  Why didn’t you ask him to stay for dinner? And while I sought for an answer, he added: Maybe it’s just as well you didn’t, for today is Friday and the salmon I was expecting from Galway hasn’t arrived.

  But Yeats and I aren’t Catholics.

  My house is a Catholic house, and those who don’t care to conform to the rule —

  Your dogmatism exceeds that of an Archbishop; and I told him that I had heard my father say that the Archbishop of Tuam, Dr McHale, had meat always on his table on Friday, and when asked how this was, answered that he didn’t know who had gotten dispensations and who hadn’t. Edward muttered that he was not to be taken in by such remarks about dispensations; he knew very well I had never troubled to ask for one.

  Why should I, since I’m not a Catholic?

  If you aren’t a Catholic, why don’t you become a Protestant?

  In the first place, one doesn’t become a Protestant, one discovers oneself a Protestant; and it seems to me that an Agnostic has as much right to eat meat on Friday as a Protestant.

  Agnosticism isn’t a religion. It contains no dogma.

  It comes to this, then: that you’re going to make me dine off a couple of boiled eggs. And I walked about the room, indignant, but not because I care much about my food — two eggs and a potato are more agreeable to me in intelligent society than grouse would be in stupid. But two eggs and a potato forced down my throat on a theological fork in a Gothic house that had cost twenty thousand pounds to build — two eggs and a potato, without hope of cheese! The Irish do not eat cheese, and I am addicted to it, especially to Double Gloucester. In my school-days that cheese was a wonderful solace in my life, but after leaving school I asked for it in vain, and gave up hope of ever eating it again. It was not till the ‘nineties that a waiter mentioned it. Stilton, sir; Chester, Double Gloucester — Double Gloucester! You have Double Gloucester! I thought it extinct. You have it? Then bring it, I cried, and so joyfully that he couldn’t drag himself from my sight. An excellent cheese, I told him, but somewhat fallen from the high standard it had assumed in my imagination. Even so, if there had been a slice of Double Gloucester in the larder at Tillyra, I should not have minded the absence of the salmon, and if Edward had pleaded that his servants would be scandalised to see any one who was supposed to be a Catholic eat meat on Fridays, I should have answered: But everybody knows I’m not a Catholic. I’ve written it in half a dozen books. And if Edward had said: But my servants don’t read your books; I shall be obliged if you’ll put up with fasting fare for once, I would have eaten an egg and a potato without murmur or remark. But to be told I must dine off two eggs and a potato, so that his conscience should not be troubled during the night, worried me, and I am afraid I cast many an angry look across the table. An apple pie came up and some custards, and these soothed me; he discovered some marmalade in a cupboard, and Edward is such a sociable being when his pipe is alight, that I forgave his theological prejudices for the sake of his aesthetic. We peered into reproductions of Fra Angelico’s frescoes, and studied Leonardo’s sketches for draperies. Edward liked Ibsen from the beginning, and will like him to the end, and Swift. But he cannot abide Schumann’s melodies. We had often talked of these great men and their works, but never did he talk as delightfully as on that Friday evening right on into Saturday morning. Nor was it till Sunday morning that his soul began to trouble him again. As I was finishing breakfast, he had the face to ask me to get ready to go to Mass.

  But, Edward, I don’t believe in the Mass. My presence will be only — Will you hold your tongue, George?... and not give scandal, he answered, his voice trembling with emotion. Everybody knows that I don’t believe in the Mass.

  If you aren’t a Catholic, why don’t you become a Protestant? And he began pushing me from behind. I have told you before that one may become a Catholic, but one discovers oneself a Protestant. But why am I going to Gort? Because you had the bad taste to describe our church in A Drama in Muslin, and to make such remarks about our parish priest that he said, if you showed yourself in Ardrahan again, he’d throw dirty water over you. If you send me to Gort, I shall be able to describe Father — — ‘s church. Will you not be delaying? One word more, It isn’t on account of my description of Father — — ‘s church that you won’t take me to Ardrahan: the real reason is because, at your request, mind you, I asked Father —— not to spit upon your carpet when he came to dinner at Tillyra. You were afraid to ask a priest to refrain from any of his habits, and left the room. I only asked you to draw his attention to the spittoon. Which I did; but he said such things were only a botheration, and my admonitions on the virtue of cleanliness angered him so that he never —

  You’ll be late for Mass. And you, Whelan; now, are you listening to me? Do you hear me? You aren’t to spare the whip. Away you go; you’ll only be just in time. And you, Whelan, you’re not to delay putting up the horse. Do you hear me?

  Whelan drove away rapidly, and when I looked back I saw my friend hurrying across the park, tumbling into the sunk fence in his anxiety not to miss the Confiteor, and Whelan, who saw the accident, too, feared that the masther is after hurting himself. Happily this was not so. Edward was soon on his feet again, running across the field like a hare, the driver said — out of politeness, I suppose.

  Hardly like a hare, I said, hoping to draw a more original simile from Whelan’s rustic mind; but he only coughed a little, and shook up the reins which he held in a shapeless, freckled hand.

  Do you like the parish priest at Gort better than Father —— at Ard
rahan?

  They’re well matched, Whelan answered — a thick-necked, long-bodied fellow with a rim of faded hair showing under a bowler hat that must have been about the stables for years, collecting dust along the corn-bin and getting greasy in the harness-room. One reasoned that it must have been black once upon a time, and that Whelan must have been a young man long ago; and one reasoned that he must have shaved last week, or three weeks ago, for there was a stubble on his chin. But in spite of reason, Whelan seemed like something that had always been, some old rock that had lain among the bramble since the days of Finn MacCoole, and his sullenness seemed as permanent as that of the rocks, and his face, too, seemed like a worn rock, for it was without profile, and I could only catch sight of a great flabby ear and a red, freckled neck, about which was tied a woollen comforter that had once been white.

  He answered my questions roughly, without troubling to turn his head, like a man who wishes to be left to himself; and acquiescing in his humour, I fell to thinking of Father James Browne, the parish priest of Carnacun in the ‘sixties, and of the day that he came over to Moore Hall in his ragged cassock and battered biretta, with McHale’s Irish translation of Homer under his arm, saying that the Archbishop had caught the Homeric ring in many a hexameter. My father smiled at the priest’s enthusiasm, but I followed this tall, gaunt man, of picturesque appearance, whose large nose with tufted nostrils I remember to this day, into the Blue Room to ask him if the Irish were better than the Greek. He was a little loth to say it was not, but this rustic scholar did not carry patriotism into literature, and he admitted, on being pressed, that he liked the Greek better, and I listened to his great rotund voice pouring through his wide Irish mouth while he read me some eight or ten lines of Homer, calling my attention to the famous line that echoes the clash of the wave on the beach and the rustle of the shingle as the wave sinks back. My curiosity about McHale’s translation interested him in me, and it was arranged soon after between him and my father that he should teach me Latin, and I rode a pony over every morning to a thatched cottage under ilex-trees, where the pleasantest hours of my childhood were spent in a parlour lined with books from floor to ceiling, reading there a little Virgil, and persuading an old priest into talk about Quintilian and Seneca. One day he spoke of Propertius, and the beauty of the name led me to ask Father James if I might read him, and not receiving a satisfactory answer, my curiosity was stimulated and Caesar studied diligently for a month.