George Moore

“ Why cannot I live in natural instinct? ... I can, I will.... Morton shall come back.... He has not married Rose Turner; I should have heard of it if he had.... I've only to hold up my finger, and he will come back. But if I did get him back, and he did propose, how do I know that it would not be for my money? A love once dead cannot be revived; nothing ever happens twice.'
She crept back to her bed, cold and despondent. The passing passion she had felt for Morton was but a passing sensation of the summer night, as transient as the snatches of perfume which the night wind carried into the room. ”

“ As portraits, these of Mildred Lawson and John Norton are exquisitely finished. They are half-lengths, with a quality of coloring fascinating in its repelling truth. Every tint and shade have been cunningly and caressingly laid in, so that the features, living and animated, are yet filled with suggestions of the spiritual barrenness in the originals. Very human they are, and yet they are without those gracious qualities which link humanity with what we feel to be divine. There is the touch of nature here, but it is not the touch which makes the whole world kin. That touch we ourselves supply ”

“ As she sat thinking, her novel on her knees, she could see that other woman sitting by his death-bed. Two candles were burning in the vast studio, and by their dim light she saw the shadow of the profile on the pillow. She thought of him as a man yearning for an ideal which he could never attain, and dying of his yearning in the end! And that so beautiful and so holy an aspiration should proceed from the common concubinage of a studio! Suddenly she decided that Ralph was not worthy of her. Her instinct had told her from the first that something was wrong. ”

“ Of course, no such girl had ever existed or could exist, those melting eyes and the impossible innocence of that mouth! It was the soul of a courtesan in the body of a virgin. She was like that, somewhat like that; and, inspired by the likeness between herself and the picture, Mildred took up her charcoal and continued her drawing.
But she must have been thinking vaguely all the while of Ralph, for suddenly her thoughts became clear and she heard the words as if they had been read to her: 'Lots of men have killed themselves for women, but to die of a broken heart proves a great deal more. ”

“ And the work of the good and wise man is to use appearances according to Nature. For it is the nature of every soul to consent to what is good and reject what is evil, and to hold back about what is uncertain; and thus to be moved to pursue the good and avoid the evil, and neither way for what is neither good nor evil.'
In the light of these words John's mind grew serene as a landscape on which the moon is shining; and he asked himself why he had hesitated if marriage were the state which he was destined to fulfil? ”

“ Father is dead seven years, mother is dead three, and since her death I have kept house for Harold.'
Then as sleep pressed upon her eyelids Mildred's thoughts grew disjointed. ... 'Alfred, I have thought it all over. I cannot marry you. ... Do not reproach me,' she said between dreaming and waking; and as the purple space of sky between the trees grew paler, she heard the first birds. Then dream and reality grew undistinguishable, and listening to the carolling of a thrush she saw a melancholy face, and then a dejected figure pass into the twilight. ”

“ Fargus suffered from asthma, and hoped no further questions would be asked, so happy was she in the sense of real emancipation from the bondage of home—so delighted was she in the spectacle of the great boulevard, now radiant with spring sunlight.
She wondered at the large blue cravats of idlers, sitting in cafes freshly strewn with bright clean sand, at the aprons of the waiters,— the waiters were now pouring out green absinthe,—at the little shop girls in tight black dresses and frizzled hair, passing three together arm in arm; all the boulevard amused and interested Mildred. ”

“ I'll wait until our cobbler has made you a pair of boots. But isn't that desolate region of blasted oaks and sundered rocks wonderful? You find everything in the forest. In a few minutes I shall show you some lovely underwood.'
And they had walked a very little way when he stopped and said: 'Don't you call that beautiful?' and, leaning against the same tree, Morton and Mildred looked into the dreamy depth of a summer wood. The trunks of the young elms rose straight, and through the pale leafage the sunlight quivered, full of the impulse of the morning. ”

“ Norton and Kitty were upstairs dressing.
He wandered into the drawing-room and viewed the dead, cumbrous furniture; the two cabinets bright with brass and veneer. He stood at the window staring. It was raining. The yellow of the falling leaves was hidden in grey mist. 'This weather will keep many away; so much the better; there will be too many as it is. I wonder who this can be.' A melancholy brougham passed up the drive. There were three old maids, all looking sweetly alike; one was a cripple who walked with crutches, and her smile was the best and the gayest imaginable smile. ”

“ There was something in life which forced all girls into marriage, with their will or against their will. Marriage, marriage, always marriage—always the eternal question of sex, as if there was nothing else in the world. But there was much else in life. There was a nobler purpose in life than keeping house for a man. Of that she felt quite sure, and she hoped that she would find a vocation. ”

“ What forces us to live? What makes us live? Enigma. Nature, whatever that may be, forces us to live, wills that we should live. 'And I, too, like millions of others must live. But how am I to live? How am I to fill my life? If we live we must find something to live for. Take a studio and paint bad pictures? I couldn't. Go back to Paris and start a salon? I wonder!'
Then the desire to weep overcame her, and, so as to be able to surrender herself wholly to grief and tears, she took off her gown and released herself of her stays. She put on an old wrapper and threw herself upon the floor. ”

“ At that same moment he was thinking that there never had been any pleasure in his life; and Mildred—her hat, her expensive dress, her sunshade— seemed in such bitter contrast to himself, to his own life, that he could not hide a natural irritation.
'Your life has been all pleasure,' he said, glancing at her disdainfully.
'No, indeed, it has not. My life has been miserable enough. We are rich, it is true, but our riches have never brought me happiness. ”

“ But the difficulty of conquest only whetted her appetite for victory, and she might even have pursued her quest with ridiculous attentions if accident had not made known to her the fact that M. Daveau was not only the lover of another lady in the studio, but that he loved her to the perfect exclusion of every other woman. Mildred's face darkened between the eyes, a black little cloud of hatred appeared and settled there. ”

“ For the funeral there were crosses and wreaths of white flowers, roses, and stephanotis. And the Austin girls and their cousins, who had come from Brighton and Worthing, carried loose flowers. Down the short drive, through the iron gate, through the farm gate, the bearers staggering a little under the weight of lead, the little cortege passed two by two. A broken-hearted lover, a grief-stricken father, and a dozen sweet girls, their eyes and cheeks streaming with tears. Kitty, their girl friend, was dead. The word 'dead' rang in their hearts in answer to the mournful tolling of the bell. ”

“ But I am not selfish, Reggie. I've never been selfish where you have been concerned, have I?'
'I at least can't accuse you of selfishness, Olive. You've always been a good friend to me. There was my bankruptcy—-'
'Do not speak of it. I only did for you what you would have done for me. I have been very unlucky; I was cursed with a husband who was a fool, and who lost all his money—no one can say he's in his right mind. They say that I have driven him out of his mind, but that is not so, you know that it is not so; I've not driven you out of your mind. There never was such a fool as my husband. ”

“ He'd have to risk that. Anyhow, she wasn't common like the others.... In time she would become common; time makes all things common.
'But this is God-damned madness,' he cried out, and lay staring into the darkness, his eyes and heart on fire. Visions of Mildred and Delacour haunted his pillow, he did not know whether he slept or waked; and he rose from his bed weary, heavy-eyed, and pale.
He was to meet her at eleven on the terrace by the fish-pond, and had determined to come to an understanding with her, but his heart choked him when he saw her coming toward him along the gravel path. ”

“ Alfred liked Harold, and did not wish his death, but if Harold did go off suddenly Alfred saw no reason why he should not ask Mildred to marry him. He liked her as well as any other girl; he thought he would make her a good husband, he would be able to manage her better than any other man, he was sure of that, because he understood her. She was a queer one: but he thought they'd get along all right. But all this was in the future, so long as Harold lived he'd keep on just as he was; if she met a man she liked better she could have him. ”

“ And now, as he returned home after the tragedy, about midway in his walk across the downs, the thought came upon him that the breaking off of his engagement might have been sufficient reason in an affected mind for suicide. But this was not so. He knew it was not so. He had been spared that!
'She was here with me yesterday,' he said. And he looked down the landscape now wrapped in a white mist. The hills were like giants sleeping, the long distance vanished in mysterious moonlight. He could see Brighton, nearer was Southwick; and further away, past the shadowy shore, was Worthing. ”

“ And, with the first discovery of a peculiarity of temperament, Mildred had grown intensely interested in herself; she remembered how day by day she had made new discoveries in herself, how she had wondered at this being which was she. Her faults at all times had especially interested her. She remembered how frightened, how delighted she had been, when she discovered that she was a cruel woman. She had not suspected this till the day she sat in the garden listening to Alfred's reproaches and expostulations. She had thrilled at the thought that she could make a man so unhappy. ”

“ He saw the Saracen, and trembling with aspiration, he heard the great theme of salvation to the Saviour sung by the basses, by the tenors, by the altos; it was held by a divine boy's voice for four bars high up in the cupola, and the belief theme in harp arpeggios rained down like manna on the bent heads of the knights.
Awaking a little, his thoughts returned to the consideration of his present condition. He had been ill, death had been by his bedside, and in that awful moment he had blasphemed. He could conceive nothing more terrible, and he thanked God for his great mercy. ”

“ So she collects huge bouquets, armfuls of beautiful flowers, garlands and wreaths. The flower-wall rises, and hoping to combat the fury of the beast with purity, she goes whither snowy blossoms bloom in clustering millions. She gathers them in haste; her arms and hands stream with blood, but she pays no heed, and as the snake surmounts one barricade she builds another. But the reptile leans over the roses. The long, thin neck is upon her; she feels the horrid strength of the coils as they curl and slip about her, drawing her whole life into one knotted and loathsome embrace. ”

“ It offered an excellent opportunity for acting, and Mildred was only happy when she could get outside herself. She crossed her hands and composed her most demure air; and, for the sake of the audience which it pleased her to imagine; and when Harold was not looking she allowed her malicious eyes to say what she was really thinking. And he, unconscious of the amusement he afforded, made delightful comedy. He tried to come to the point, but feared to speak too suddenly of the money she had drawn out of the mortgage, and, in his embarrassment, he took a book from the table. ”

“ Moore is a naturalist in the finest sense of that word. He deals with nature as the artist must deal with it if nature is to be understood and enjoyed. For Moore's relationship with nature, and especially with human nature, is of that rare kind which is the experience of the very few—of those fine spirits endowed with the highest sympathy—a sympathy which is not a feeling with or for others but an actual union with others, a union which brings suffering as well as enjoyment. This is the artist's burden of sorrow and it is also his privilege. ”

“ A legend was in circulation that to imitate Turner's rough surfaces he covered his canvas with plaster of Paris and glazed upon it.
The little life of the galleries was alive with story. Walter was a fair young man with abundant hair and conversation. Elsie hung about his easel. He covered a canvas with erratic blots of colour and quaint signs, but his plausive eloquence carried him through, and Elsie thought more highly of his talents than he did of hers. ”

“ Then seeing Christ amid His white million of youths, beautiful singing saints, gold curls and gold aureoles, lifted throats, and form of harp and dulcimer, he fell prone in great bitterness on the misery of earthly life. His happiness and ambitions appeared to him less than the scattering of a little sand on the sea-shore. Joy is passion, passion is suffering; we cannot desire what we possess; therefore desire is rebellion prolonged indefinitely against the realities of existence ”