Complete Works of George Moore

by George Moore

  There was no further doubt in the minds of Plunkett and Anderson that AE was the man they wanted. Plunkett sent him an invitation to come to see him, and they saw a tall, thin man, overflowing with wild humour; the ends of his eyes went up and he seemed to them like a kindly satyr, something that had not yet experienced civilisation, for the first stipulation was that he should not receive more than three pounds a week. No man’s work, according to him, was worth more. He would need a bicycle, and on being pressed he accepted the present of one; and he rode through Ireland, preaching the doctrine of co-operation and dairy-farming from village to village, winning friends to the movement by the personal magnetism which he exercises wherever he goes. As soon as he arrived in a village everybody’s heart became a little warmer, a little friendlier; the sensation of isolation and loneliness, which all human beings feel, thawed a little; everybody must have felt happier the night that that kindly man mounted a platform, threw back his long hair, and began to talk to them, giving them shrewd advice and making them feel that he loved them and that they were not unworthy of his love. The only house in the poor village in which he could lodge would be the priest’s house, and the lonely village priest, who does not meet a friend with whom he can exchange an idea once every three months, would spend a memorable evening with AE. The priests in these villages have little bookshelves along their rooms, and AE would go to these shelves and find a book that had not interested the priest since the enthusiasm of his youth had died down; he would open this book, and read passages, and awaken the heart of the priest. In the morning the old bicycle would be brought out, and away AE would go, and the priest, I am sure, looked after him, sorry that he was going. Protestants, Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists — all united in loving AE. Although other things might be wrong, one thing was right — AE; and they followed him, captivated by the tune he played on his pipes, and before the year was out the skeleton that was Plunkett’s, and the flesh and the muscles that were Anderson’s began to stir. The watchers called to each other. Anderson, see, it has shifted its leg! Plunkett, see, it has moved an inch; life is creeping over it, from the crown of its head to the soles of its feet; in other words, creameries were springing up in every part of the country, and then Plunkett conceived again. He was a member for South Dublin, and on the friendliest terms with the Unionist Government, so he had no difficulty in forming a committee to inquire into what had been done on the Continent for the co-ordination of State and voluntary action. Many members of this committee were members of Parliament; the committee met during Recess, and was called the Recess Committee.

  As well as I remember, Gill’s beard was being trimmed in France while the Recess Committee was forming. He was called over by Plunkett to be his secretary. Gill knew French, and it was understood that he had talked co-operative economics with Frenchmen. A newspaper was required, to explain these ideas to the public. The Express had been purchased by Mr Dalziel, who made over the control to Plunkett; Gill was appointed editor; Rolleston, Healy, Longworth, AE, Yeats, John Eglinton, all contributed articles; economics and folklore, Celtic and Indian Gods, all went into the same pot — an extraordinary broth very much disliked by the Freeman’s Journal and the Parliamentary Party. Dillon made wry faces, all the same the broth was swallowed and Gerald Balfour brought in his Bill for the creation of a State Department; Plunkett was appointed Vice-President, and it was understood that the whole central authority should be in his hands, though the nominal head was the Home Secretary. About one hundred and seventy thousand a year was voted, and a great part of this money would go in providing for an immense staff of secretaries, inspectors, and lecturers. AE could have had any one of these places for the asking, luxurious places from three hundred to a thousand a year; but he preferred to remain with the I.A.O.S. If it was not his own child, he had reared it and taught it to walk. Now should he desert it? Besides, a comfortable house and servants, a quiet walk down to his office in the morning to sign a few letters, and the quiet conviction that he is running the country by doing so, is not like AE; his soul is too personal for office life, he must be doing his own work; the work is of different kinds, but it is always his own work. He is himself when he rides all over the country, preaching co-operation to the farmers, as much as when he returns to Dublin and begins a poem or paints a picture. Besides, the post of secretary seemed from the very beginning to belong to Gill. During the year he edited the Express he had prepared the public and the official mind for the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction, constituted on Continental lines; but Gill had been a Plan-of-Campaigner, and a Nationalist member of Parliament, and at Tillyra, while the adaptation of The Tale of a Town was in progress, Gill’s dilemma was often under consideration. Edward was a large recipient of his confidence and often spoke to me, and very seriously, on the matter. He believed Gill to be, if not in the flesh, at least in the spirit a member of the Parliamentary Party, and his unalterable opinion was that a Nationalist should never accept office under an English Government. But it seemed to me that Gill would act very unwisely if he refused the Secretaryship, and I think I remember saying to Edward that Gill should have consulted me instead, for he would have gotten from me the advice that would have been agreeable to him — to take the primrose path, the scent of which is already in his nostrils. One of the charms of Edward’s character is its simplicity; he knows so little about life that it was a surprise to him to hear that men do not consult their friends when their determination is to walk in the thorny path.

  The martyr, I said, doesn’t consult among his brethren; his resolve hardens in the loneliness of his heart.

  I see what you mean — I see what you mean, Edward answered. So then you think —

  No, my dear Edward, we are among the complexities of human nature. Our hesitations continue, even though we know, in our subconsciousness, that the end is decreed. Gill’s nationalism is quite sincere; the flame doesn’t burn very fiercely, but then his nature is not a great nature like Davitt’s, and our natures give — overlook the platitude — only what they are capable of giving. But though a flame throws out little heat and light, it is a flame for all that, and the faintest flame is worthy of our respect.

  All the same, I don’t think that a Nationalist should ever take office from the English Government, and Edward marched off to his tower to reconsider his third act, which Yeats and I had agreed he never would be able to write satisfactorily. Gill came to Tillyra a little before Edward’s play was finally refused by Yeats and myself, and seated himself firmly on the fence, as is his wont. Edward, I believe, continued to consult him regarding the revisions Yeats and I were daily proposing. All the same, his name was omitted from that part of my narrative — he seemed a side issue — and in Dublin I was obliged to cast him out of it again. But now my narrative demands his presence and his voice, and I hasten to tell that as soon as Edward left me in Merrion Street (the reader remembers that he refused to advise me regarding he political situation), Gill’s name occurred to me; he seemed to be, on the instant, the very person who could guide me through the maze of Irish political intrigue, and my steps turned mechanically from the Shelbourne Hotel, whither I was going, towards Clare Street. A few minutes later I was on Gill’s doorstep asking myself why Gill had chosen to confide in Edward rather than in me, and hoping for a long talk with him, after the reading of the play. Scruples of conscience are my speciality, and I was genuinely concerned about his future, being naturally très bon pour la vie, that is to say, très officieux aux voisins. On the doorstep it seemed to me that he was bound to consider not only himself but his wife and his children. My thoughts turned about them while I read the play, and when the reading was over, Gill began to talk on the political questions that were then agitating Ireland. He is always diffuse and vague without much power of concentration, but that night it was easy to see that his thoughts were elsewhere. He will confide in me presently, I said, and, to lead him into confidence, I spoke of the Express, which had then spent all the c
apital that had been advanced by Mr Dalziel. Nor was it likely that Horace Plunkett would put any more capital into the newspaper, and, after a little discourse as to what might be done with this newspaper, if a capitalist could be found, Gill mentioned that he had been offered the post of Secretary to the Department.

  That’s the best bit of news I’ve heard this long while. Edward told me that you had consulted him, but he thinks that, on account of the pledge —

  I am no longer a member of Parliament, but my sympathies are with my friend, John Redmond, who, to take the rough with the smooth, seems to be doing very well.

  But, Gill, Edward and some others who advised you against accepting the post haven’t considered your interests.

  And they do right, Gill answered, not to consider my interests. My interests don’t count with me for a moment. What I am thinking is that Plunkett may miss a magnificent chance if he has nobody by him who knows the country.

  But Plunkett is an Irishman.

  Plunkett is a Protestant, and a Protestant can never know Ireland.

  A Protestant that has always lived in Ireland?

  Even so. Ireland is Catholic if she is anything.

  And you’re a Catholic first of all, Gill, for you abandoned the Plan of Campaign when the Church condemned it.

  Certainly I did, and what strikes me now is that it is hard if Ireland should be deprived of the labour of one of her sons because he once belonged to the Parliamentary Party. I’ve written to Gerald Balfour on the subject, and Gill rose from his chair and walked to his writing-table.

  Will you read me the letter?

  Yes, I’ll read it to you. And when he had finished it I said:

  The letter you’ve just read me is a very good letter, but it fills me with apprehension, for it seems to me that you leave Gerald Balfour to decide whether you should accept the appointment that he is offering you. Remember your wife and children.

  If I were convinced that the best service I could render to Ireland —

  But what could you do for Ireland better than to put your gift of co-ordination at the country’s service?

  Yes, co-ordination is the thing, the delegation of all detail to subordinates, reserving to oneself the consideration of the main outline, the general scheme, yet I am not sure that at the head of a great newspaper I shouldn’t be able to serve Ireland better than as the Secretary of the Department. Or perhaps the great newspaper might come after the Secretaryship. It will take some years to get the Department into working order; Home Rule is bound to come sooner or later, and the Department will create an immense batch of officials, all well equipped with ideas, and the preparation of this great machine would be a task worthy of any man’s talent. When Home Rule comes there will be an immense change in the government of the country, and very likely the old civil servants will be pensioned off. If such a change were to happen it would interest me to take charge of a great daily.

  And have you any idea of a policy for the paper? What line do you think Ireland should take in the present crisis?

  And while drawing the golden hair of his beard through his insignificant little hands, Gill began to tell me that, unlike England. Ireland had never known how to compromise. I gathered that he had been reading John Morley, and had discovered arguments that had satisfied him it would not be wise for the race, or for the individual, to persevere in the Nationalism begotten of a belief that a great European conflagration might give birth to a hero who would conquer England, and, incidentally, give Ireland her freedom. He is beginning to see, I thought, that if the long-dreamed-of hero did arise he might propose to enlist Ireland’s help for his own purposes, and not surrender her for ever to Donnybrook Fair and an eternal singing of The Wearin’ o’ the Green. He has just reached the age when the Catholic Celt begins to see, that, though he may continue in his belief in magicians with power to turn God into a wafer, to forgive sins and redeem souls from Purgatory, it would be wise for him to put by his dreams of Brian Boru, to keep them in the background of his mind, a sort of Tir-n’an-og into which he retires in the evening in moments of lassitude and leisure. England allows the Catholic Celt to continue his idle dreaming, knowing well that as soon as sappy youth is over he will come asking for terms. Some become policemen, some soldiers, some barristers; only a negligible minority fails to fall into line, and that is why the Celt is so ineffectual; his dreams go one way and his actions go another. But why blame the race? Every race produces more Gills than Davitts; a man like Davitt, immune from the temptations of compromise, whose ideas and whose actions are identical —

  My thoughts, breaking off, returned to Gill, and, while listening to him drawing political wisdom from the very ends of his beard, it seemed to me a pity that Edward had not confided his plot to me from the beginning, for then we should have been able to create a character quite different from Jasper Deane, and much more real. But the play would have to be finished at once, and next morning I went away to London, to patch up one that should not compromise too flagrantly Yeats’s literary integrity.

  It seems to me now that I have made up some arrears of story, and am free to tell that in the year 1901, when I came to live in Ireland, I found Gill the centre of the Irish Literary and Agricultural party, and looked upon by it as the one man who could weather the political peril and bring the Irish nation into port. When I arrived I found Yeats speaking of Gill as a man of very serious ability, but, as if afraid lest he might compromise literature, he always added, an excellent journalist. AE may have thought with Edward that Gill should have refused the post of Secretary, but to criticise Gill’s hobby for compromise would be to criticise Plunkett, and, as well as I recollect, AE’s view of the appointment was that Gill understood Catholic Ireland, and would be able to give effect to Plunkett’s ideas. Edward, whenever the subject was mentioned, growled out that he had not hesitated to tell Gill when he came to him for advice, that, in his opinion, a Nationalist should never accept office from an English Government.

  He rolled out this opinion like a great rock, and, after having done it, he seemed duly impressed by his own steadfastness of purpose, and his own strength of mind. It may be that abstract morality of every kind is repugnant to me, for I used to resent Edward’s apothegm. Or was it that the temptation could not be resisted to measure Edward’s intellect once again?

  Your political morality is of course impeccable; but, dear Edward, will you tell me why you are coming out to Dalkey on this Sunday afternoon to see Gill? Why do you associate with people of whose political morality you cannot altogether approve?

  My dear George, all my life I have lived with people whose moralities I do not approve of. You don’t think that I approve of yours, do you? But, you know, I never believed that your life is anything else but pure; it is only your mind that is indecent, and Edward laughed, enjoying himself hugely.

  As soon as you have finished your joke perhaps you’ll tell me what you think Gill ought to have done?

  I don’t see why he shouldn’t have got his living by journalism. He did so before.

  But you don’t know what it is to get your living by journalism; you can’t, for you’ve got three thousand a year, or is it four? And not a wife, not even a mistress —

  Now, George!

  As the tram passed Blackrock Catholic Church I said:

  You used to insist on sending me to Mass when I was staying with you in Galway. Do you know, Edward, that Whelan suggested he should turn the horse’s head into Coole, and, while you thought we were at Mass, Yeats and I were talking Diarmuid and Grania?

  A great blankness swept over Edward’s face, and very often between Blackrock and Dalkey, in the pauses of our conversation, I reproached myself for having shaken his belief that he had made himself secure against God’s reproaches for the conduct of his guests at Tillyra.

  Did Gill abstain from meat on Fridays when he was at Tillyra?

  Gill is a good Catholic, but you are a bad Catholic.

  To call me a bad Catholic is one of
Edward’s jokes, and my retort is always that Rome would not regard me as such, that no man is answerable for his baptism.

  In calling me a bad Catholic you are very near to heresy.

  His face became grave again, and he muttered Mon ami Moore, mon ami Moore.

  Old friends have always their own jokes, and this joke has tickled Edward in his sense of humour for the last twenty years or more. It appears that in a moment of intense boredom I had asked a very dignified old lady in a solemn salon in the Faubourg St Germain Si elle jouait aux cartes, si elle aimait le jeu; and, on receiving an answer in the negative, I had replied: Vous aimez sans doute bien mieux, madame, le petit jeu d’amour. The old lady appealed to her husband, and explanations had ensued, and my friend Marshall, of The Confessions, had to explain que son ami Moore n’a pas voulu — what, history does not relate.

  The story has no other point except that it has tickled Edward in all his fat for twenty years, and that he regaled Gill with it that afternoon, shaking with laughter all the while, and repeating the phrase vous aimez sans doute, madame, le petit jeu d’amour, until at last, to stop him, I had to say:

  My dear Edward, I am ashamed to find you indulging in such improper conversation.

  A pleasant place on Sunday afternoons was that terrace, hanging some hundred feet or more above the sea, for on that terrace between the grey house and the cliff’s edge Gill often forgot that he was wise, and was willing to let us enjoy his real self, his cheerful superficial nature, a pleasant coming and going of light impressions, and this real self was to us, strenuous ones, what a quiet pool is to the thirsty deer at noontide. He reflected all our aspirations, giving back to Yeats The Wanderings of Usheen as the one Irish epic, and The Heather Field to Edward as pure, fresh Ibsen. AE often scanned the pool for a glimpse of economic Ireland, and Edward gazed long and anxiously into it without discovering any faintest shadow of the Irish language. Gill did not sink out of sight like the wild duck in Ibsen’s play, who dives down to the bottom and holds on to the weeds; he was for once decisive: he was going to send his boys to Trinity College, where, as Yeats said, our own folk-tales had never been crooned over the fireside. Yeats was splendid that afternoon, reminding Gill that it was not myths from Palestine, nor from India, that had inspired the Celt, but remembrances of the many beautiful women that had lived long ago and the deeds of the heroes. Edward bit his lips at the words, myths from Palestine, and took me aside to confide the fact that words like these hurt him just as if he had sat upon a pin. Gill knew that such words hurt nobody, and he continued airy, cheerful, benign, until he thought it time to return to his wisdom, and then he spoke of what he thought the policy of the Gaelic League should be in Irish-speaking districts, long-drawn-out platitudes and aphorisms of lead falling from his lips; and, to escape from these, I began to take an interest in the colour and texture of his necktie, both of which were exquisite, and then in the beauty of the flight of a tired gull, floating down the quiet air to its roost among the clefts. A flutter of wings and it alighted; the fishing boats beat up to windward; and I thought of the lonely, silent night that awaited the fishers, until Edward’s voice roused me from my meditations. He was telling Yeats that he liked the English language and the Irish, but he hated the Anglo-Irish.