The sun., 1919-01-05
By BENJAMIN DE CASSERES.

A MONG peop.es the lrishman ls the
n Peter Pan. He Viii never grow
up. lie is an aJoundng heart, a credu-
lous. naive spirit Of his soil. Ia the vel
ter of word seriousness he Is the child
spirit, tragic child spirit at times-com-
pound of fancy and fistlcuiie. of Drawing
tavern manners and impulses I" curious
martyrdOms. He l. the Antilles OF the
Commemorative. monorail Tcuioric mind, for
his attention is scattered, hy -er-4l-
Between the Russian and the 'rishman.
at first blush. there seem uni dgeab!e
psychic chasms; but they both partake OF
the blood and body of Hamlet and Don
Quixote The brain and the world are
fused. There Is perpetual marriage be
tween reality and illusion. In both, their
weaknesses constitute their genius.
In Again, Out Again.
In the Irishman there is no hard and
fast line between the external and the IN
ternal univers, :. There Is indeed no lne
ut all. To have dreamed OF dong thing
is TO have done IT. To have done a thing
is of no more Importance than 10 have
dreamed the doing OF 1t. Synge in hls
great play. The PidgOoy If the Western
World gave us in the hero Of that com
edv the evolved and involved soul of the
freshman He lies, cyaggerates and fab
ricates like troubadour poet. His i'm
agination kindles worlds INTO being as
he goes along He hastily constructs his
pontoon of facts when he comes 10 a for
hidden stream and crosses 1t lightly or
sullenly, rs his digestion dictates.
Having the strength 10 disregard facts
(Shaw's sublime disregard of facts.
saws James Huneker about George Der
nard Shaw, he Is naturally, inherently
and internationally pagan, a polythelst, q
legend maker, a myth maker, monument
tai and irnmemorial super liar. Your real
honest TO banshee soil Irishman puts fairy
stories in stones and a soul IN everything.
He invenfs symbols, signs and omens; the
voice of Sphinx may be IN his Pig; the
Delphic oraeles speak 10 him out Of a
curious carven cloud shaped by the sea
winds; the Sybifs and the Norns look at
him with eyes of fire from his hearth; his
politics is a saga; his job destiny.
That Irishman, George Moore.
Tremendously human, tantalizingly
lovable, famboyantly crratic, the IRISH
man is one of the great adventures Of the
human spirit on the planet. And he needs
the rod of the Church.
The soul of all is in each. All Of Ire
land is in each true IrislIman whole and
undivided. And George Moore Is of its
very essence. He maunders and keenS,
brags and gives, dribblcs and lies, is legen-
Diary and profane, prays and whistles 81
simultaneously, is insipidly egotistical and
impulsively generous. He drinks his
cocktail while saving grace.
In his confessions, semi-comic records
of his life as intellectual dilettante,
hayrick Don Juan and studio transom
lizard, he recalls TO US for all the world
Marie Bashkirtseff. In her mirror each
day, each hour. Marie followed the
progress OF the physical disease that was
eating her up. Moore also coquets with
himself. although his disease is physical.
He literally swims In mirrors. He ex-
amines his mustache, his wrinkles and his
style each day with the anxiety of an
o'erdone ballet dancer He has the sickly
self-eonsciousness Of a Jean Jacques
Rousseau. He puts down each event of
the day with the precision and meticulous-
ness of the being who has nothing 10 say,
but who knows he viii be read for the
splendor of HIS resonant emptiness.
His effrontery carries our breath away.
When it comes TO immortality, he viii
have none of the absent treatment. lie
walks, whether in Dublin, London or
Paris, in his homemade Valhalla and
wears his literary Croix de Guerre even
on his pajamas. Posterity is always
drawn up in serried show before his eyes