The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-04-27
BY BARRETT H. CLARK.

Dy 6EhNNANAA 49, ~NA@N@N'
\ WRITER in the columns of re-
L n cent number Of Books and the
Book World touched lightly on the
weighty subject, The Revirat Of ManHder-
inq In the course of his brief essay he
took occasion TO say: "Probably no hu-
man being has less to say to the human
race than George Moore. Sheer ideatonal
vaeuity immersed in scintiIlant rhodo-
montade. A fancy freely buzzing around
in representative emptiness. A maudlin
elegance of words married to an empyr-
can void Malvolio in a lifelong solil-
oquy on Bottom. The veritabe fourth
dimension of insipid egoprecoeity." In
deed the writer has thoroughly mastered
his subject and is well qualified to dis
course in the windy style he so ruthlessly
cOndemnsi
Seriously, do we go to art for ideasf
II we want facts, is there not the ency-
clopcdiaf We do not go to such artists
as Moore for moral edifcation, though a
good case might be made out even on that
score.
George Moore is an egotlst, he is su-
premely interested In his own acts and
thoughts-granted. But is he not mas
ter of the art Of self-revelation, and is
not that precisely one of the ends Of art
Is it not this quality we admire in the
pages of the fatuous Samuel Pepys, in
the Confessions of the pitiful Jean
Jacques Rousseau, neither of whom, by
the way, possesses one-tenth of George
Moore's power to express ideas and evoke
beautiful images7
Moore's earlier self-revelations, The
Confessions Of Young Nan and Me-
moirs Of My Dead Life, and his later
masterpieces, Hal and FaTepeH and A
Story Teller's Holiday, are efforts to Lay
bare the warp and wool of their creators
eventful life
There is a sense in which the opinion Of
a friend of mine is correct when he de-
clares that Hall and FareueU is "a great
work by a little man" The subject Of
the book may not be wholly admirable;
indeed we are struck by his petty amfty,
his selfshness and his spite, but after all
whether an artist makes use Of himself or
some one else as a model, what odds so
long as the result be true, beautiful, con-
vineing7 If an ugly artist paints beau
tifuI portrait Of himself do we quarrel
with him because Of his looksf As a
work Of art HGI and FareueH is one Of
the few perfect books of its kind if it be
not indeed unique. II affords US picture
of three Of the most interesting epochs Of
the last part Of the nineteenth century;
the Paris of Manet and Degas, Of Verlaine
and lola; the London of the early nine
ties and the Ireland of the Literary Re
vIval.
OF course we need not look here for an
unprecedented statement of facts: Moore
is contempuous Of historical accuracy.
His former friends In Ireland will tell
You that Hail and Farewell IS pure fiction,
a network Of malicious hes No matter:
we are given to see ireland through the
eyes of great artist and this Ireland is
destined to sink deeper into the con-
seriousness than the ireland of facts-if
indeed there is an Ireland of facts. Ed
ward Martyr, for example, is a very es-
tinable writer Though The Heather
Field and most Of his other works were
stillborn); and yet he will live not by his
works at all, but in the pages of Non
ami Moore.
The George Moore Of the earlier novels