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MEMOIRS OF MY DEAD LIFE

BY

GEORGE MOORE







CONTENTS


APOLOGIA PRO SCRIPTIS MEIS

I. SPRING IN LONDON

II. FLOWERING NORMANDY

III. A WAITRESS

IV. THE END OF MARIE PELLEGRIN

V. LA BUTTE

VI. SPENT LOVES

VII. NINON'S TABLE D'HOTE

VIII. THE LOVERS OF ORELAY

IX. IN THE LUXEMBOURG GARDENS

X. A REMEMBRANCE

XI. BRING IN THE LAMP

XII. SUNDAY EVENING IN LONDON

XIII. RESURGAM




APOLOGIA PRO SCRIPTIS MEIS

[_The_ APOLOGIA _which follows needs, perhaps, a word of
explanation, not to clear up Mr. Moore's text--that is as delightful,
as irrelevantly definite, as paradoxically clear as anything this
present wearer of the Ermine of English Literature has ever
written--but to explain why it was written and why it is published.
When the present publisher, who is hereinafter, in the words of
Schopenhauer, "flattened against the wall of the Wisdom of the East,"
first read and signified his pride in being able to publish these
"Memoirs," the passages now consigned to "the late Lord ----'s
library" were not in the manuscript. On the arrival of the final copy
they were discovered, and thereby hangs an amusing tale, consisting of
a series of letters which, in so far as they were written with a
certain caustic, humorous Irish pen, have taken their high place among
the "Curiosities of Literature." The upshot of the matter was that the
publisher, entangled in the "weeds" brought over by his_ Mayflower
_ancestors, found himself as against the author in the position of
Mr. Coote as against Shakespeare; that is, the matter was so
beautifully written that he had not the heart to decline it, and yet
in parts so--what shall we say?--so full of the "Wisdom of the East"
that he did not dare to publish it in the West. Whereupon he adopted
the policy of Mr. Henry Clay, which is, no doubt, always a mistake.
And the author, bearing in mind the make-up of that race of Man called
publishers, gave way on condition that this _APOLOGIA_ should
appear without change. Here it is, without so much as the alteration
of an Ibsen comma, and if the _Mayflower_ "weeds" mere instrumental
in calling it forth, then it is, after all, well that they grew_.--THE
PUBLISHER.]

Last month the post brought me two interesting letters, and the reader
will understand how interesting they were to me when I tell him that
one was from Mr. Sears, of the firm of Appleton, who not knowing me
personally had written to Messrs. Heinemann to tell them that the firm
he represented could not publish the "Memoirs" unless two stories were
omitted; "The Lovers of Orelay," and "In the Luxembourg Gardens,"--Messrs.
Heinemann had forwarded the letter to me; my interest in the
other letter was less direct, but the reader will understand that it was
not less interesting when I tell that it came from the secretary of a
certain charitable institution who had been reading the book in question,
and now wrote to consult me on many points of life and conduct. He had
been compelled to do so, for the reading of the "Memoirs" had disturbed
his mind. The reader will agree with me that disturbed is probably the
right word to use. To say that the book had undermined his convictions
or altered his outlook on life would be an exaggeration. "Outlook on life"
and "standard of conduct" are phrases from his own vocabulary, and they
depict him.

"Your outlook on life is so different from mine that I can hardly
imagine you being built of the same stuff as myself. Yet I venture to
put my difficulty before you. It is, of course, no question of mental
grasp or capacity or artistic endowment. I am, so far as these are
concerned, merely the man in the street, the averagely endowed and the
ordinarily educated. I call myself a Puritan and a Christian. I run
continually against walls of convention, of morals, of taste, which
may be all wrong, but which I should feel it wrong to climb over. You
range over fields where my make-up forbids me to wander.

"Such frankness as yours is repulsive, forbidding, demoniac! You speak
of woman as being the noblest subject of contemplation for man, but
interpreted by your book and your experiences this seems in the last
analysis to lead you right into sensuality, and what I should call
illicit connections. Look at your story of Doris! I _do_ want to
know what you feel about that story in relation to right and wrong. Do
you consider that all that Orelay adventure was put right, atoned,
explained by the fact that Doris, by her mind and body, helped you to
cultivate your artistic sense? Was Goethe right in looking upon all
women merely as subjects for experiment, as a means of training his
aesthetic sensibilities? Does it not justify the seduction of any girl
by any man? And does not that take us straight back to the dissolution
of Society? The degradation of woman (and of man) seems to be
inextricably involved. Can you regard imperturbedly a thought of your
own sister or wife passing through Doris' Orelay experience?"

       *       *       *       *       *

The address of the charitable institution and his name are printed on
the notepaper, and I experience an odd feeling of surprise whenever
this printed matter catches my eye, or when I think of it; not so much
a sense of surprise as a sense of incongruity, and while trying to
think how I might fling myself into some mental attitude which he
would understand I could not help feeling that we were very far apart,
nearly as far apart as the bird in the air and the fish in the sea.
"And he seems to feel toward me as I feel toward him, for does he not
say in his letter that it is difficult for him to imagine me built of
the same stuff as himself?" On looking into his letter again I
imagined my correspondent as a young man in doubt as to which road he
shall take, the free road of his instincts up the mountainside with
nothing but the sky line in front of him or the puddled track along
which the shepherd drives the meek sheep; and I went to my writing
table asking myself if my correspondent's spiritual welfare was my
real object, for I might be writing to him in order to exercise myself
in a private debate before committing the article to paper, or if I
was writing for his views to make use of them. One asks oneself these
questions but receives no answer. He would supply me with a point of
view opposed to my own, this would be an advantage; so feeling rather
like a spy within the enemy's lines on the eve of the battle I began
my letter. "My Dear Sir: Let me assure you that we are 'built of the
same stuff.' Were it not so you would have put my book aside. I even
suspect we are of the same kin; were it otherwise you would not have
written to me and put your difficulties so plainly before me." Laying
the pen aside I meditated quite a long while if I should tell him that
I imagined him as a young man standing at the branching of the roads,
deciding eventually that it would not be wise for me to let him see
that reading between the lines I had guessed his difficulty to be a
personal one. "We must proceed cautiously," I said, "there may be a
woman in the background.... The literary compliments he pays me and
the interest that my book has excited are accidental, circumstantial.
Life comes before literature, for certain he stands at the branching
of the roads,