Moore - Confessions of a Young Man

It was converted from clean and standard xhtml/xml files.
It uses metatags to identify content, and other data.
The available resources specific to each ebook format were used togive the reader a pleasant reading experience.
More details available at the ebookslib.com website.
Any suggestions that help us improve these editions arewelcome.

2011 ebookslib.com

eBook Version
eBooksLib.com
eBooksLib, eBooksLib.com are Registered trademarks owned byeBooksDistrib S.A.R.L (LLC)
___________________
November-2011

ISBN : 978-1-4121-8812-8

C ONFESSIONS OF A YOUNGMAN
By GEORGE MOORE. 1886.
Edited and Annotated by GEORGE MOORE, 1904,
Clifford's Inn - 1904

L 'me del'ancien gyptien s'veillait en moi quand mourut ma jeunesse, etj'tais inspir de conserver mon pass, son esprit et sa forme,dans l'art.

Alors trempant le pinceau dans ma mmoire, j'aipeint ses joues pour qu'elles prissent l'exacte ressemblance de lavie, et j'ai envelopp le mort dans les plus fins linceuls.Rhamens le second n'a pas reu des soins plus pieux! Que celivre soit aussi durable que sa pyramide!

Votre nom, cher ami, je voudrais l'inscrire icicomme pitaphe, car vous tes mon plus jeune et mon plus cherami; et il se trouve en vous tout ce qui est gracieux et subtildans ces mornes annes qui s'gouttent dans le vase du vingtimesicle.

G.M.

D ear little book,what shall I say about thee? Belated offspring of mine, out ofprint for twenty years, what shall I say in praise of thee? Fortwenty years I have only seen thee in French, and in this Englishtext thou comest to me like an old love, at once a surprise and arecollection. Dear little book, I would say nothing about thee if Icould help it, but a publisher pleads, and "No" is a churlish word.So for him I will say that I like thy prattle; that whiletravelling in a railway carriage on my way to the country of"Esther Waters," I passed my station by, and had to hire a carriageand drive across the downs.

Like a learned Abb I delighted in the confessionsof this young man, a naf young man, a little vicious inhis navet, who says that his soul must have been dipped inLethe so deeply that he came into the world without remembrance ofprevious existence. He can find no other explanation for the factthat the world always seems to him more new, more wonderful than itdid to anyone he ever met on his faring; every wayside acquaintanceseemed old to this amazing young man, and himself seemed to himselfthe only young thing in the world. Am I imitating the style ofthese early writings? A man of letters who would parody his earlystyle is no better than the ancient light-o'-love who wears a wigand reddens her cheeks. I must turn to the book to see how far thisis true. The first thing I catch sight of is some French, anastonishing dedication written in the form of an epitaph, anepitaph upon myself, for it appears that part of me was dead evenwhen I wrote "Confessions of a Young Man." The youngest have apast, and this epitaph dedication, printed in capital letters,informs me that I have embalmed my past, that I have wrapped thedead in the finest winding-sheet. It would seem I am a little moredifficult to please to-day, for I perceived in the railway train acertain coarseness in its tissue, and here and there a tangledthread. I would have wished for more care, for un peu plus detoilette. There is something pathetic in the loving regard ofthe middle-aged man for the young man's coat (I will not saywinding-sheet, that is a morbidity from which the middle-agedshrink). I would set his coat collar straighter, I would sweep somespecks from it. But can I do aught for this youth, does he need mysupervision? He was himself, that was his genius; and I sit atgaze. My melancholy is like her's - the ancient light-o'-love ofwhom I spoke just now, when she sits by the fire in the dusk, aminiature of her past self in her hand.

T his edition hasnot been printed from old plates, no chicanery of that kind: it hasbeen printed from new type, and it was brought about by WalterPater's evocative letter. (It wasn't, but I like to think that itwas). Off and on, his letter was sought for during many years,hunted for through all sorts of portfolios and bookcases, but neverfound until it appeared miraculously, just as the proof of my Paterarticle was being sent back to the printer, the precious lettertranspired - shall I say "transpired?" - through a crack in the oldbookcase.

BRASENOSE COLLEGE,

Mar. 4.

MY DEAR, AUDACIOUS MOORE, - Many thanks for the"Confessions" which I have read with great interest, and admirationfor your originality - your delightful criticisms - yourAristophanic joy, or at least enjoyment, in life - your unfailingliveliness. Of course, there are many things in the book I don'tagree with. But then, in the case of so satiric a book, I supposeone is hardly expected to agree or disagree. What I cannot doubt isthe literary faculty displayed. "Thou com'st in such a questionableshape!" I feel inclined to say on finishing your book; "shape"morally, I mean; not in reference to style.

You speak of my own work very pleasantly; but myenjoyment has been independent of that. And still I wonder how muchyou may be losing, both for yourself and for your writings, bywhat, in spite of its gaiety and good-nature and genuine sense ofthe beauty of many things, I must still call a cynical, andtherefore exclusive, way of looking at the world. You call it only"realistic." Still!

With sincere wishes for the future success of yourmost entertaining pen. - Very sincerely yours,

WALTER PATER.

Remember, reader, that this letter was written bythe last great English writer, by the author of "ImaginaryPortraits," the most beautiful of all prose books. I should like tobreak off and tell of my delight in reading "Imaginary Portraits,"but I have told my delight elsewhere; go, seek out what I have saidin the pages of the Pall Mall Magazine for August 1904, forhere I am obliged to tell you of myself. I give you Pater's letter,for I wish you to read this book with reverence; never forget thatPater's admiration has made this book a sacred book. Never forgetthat.

My special pleasure in these early pages was to findthat I thought about Pater twenty years ago as I think about himnow, and shall certainly think of him till time everlasting, worldwithout end. I have been accused of changing my likes and dislikes- no one has changed less than I, and this book is proof of myfidelity to my first ideas; the ideas I have followed all my lifeare in this book - dear crescent moon rising in the south-eastabove the trees at the end of the village green. It was in thatugly but well-beloved village on the south coast I discovered mylove of Protestant England. It was on the downs that the instinctof Protestantism lit up in me.