Perhaps it is not accident only, but a vague recollection of dipping and dallying6 in ESTHER WATERS, EVELYN INNES, THE LAKE, which makes us take down in its new and stately form HAIL AND FAREWELL (Heinemann)— the two large volumes which George Moore has written openly and directly about himself. For all his novels are written, covertly7 and obliquely8, about himself, so at least memory would persuade us, and it may help us to understand them if we steep ourselves in the pure waters which are elsewhere tinged9 with fictitious10 flavours. But are not all novels about the writer’s self, we might ask? It is only as he sees people that we can see them; his fortunes colour and his oddities shape his vision until what we see is not the thing itself, but the thing seen and the seer inextricably mixed. There are degrees, however. The great novelist feels, sees, believes with such intensity11 of conviction that he hurls12 his belief outside himself and it flies off and lives an independent life of its own, becomes Natasha, Pierre, Levin, and is no longer Tolstoy. When, however, Mr. Moore creates a Natasha she may be charming, foolish, lovely, but her beauty, her folly13, her charm are not hers, but Mr. Moore’s. All her qualities refer to him. In other words, Mr. Moore is completely lacking in dramatic power. On the face of it, ESTHER WATERS has all the appearance of a great novel; it has sincerity14, shapeliness, style; it has surpassing seriousness and integrity; but because Mr. Moore has not the strength to project Esther from himself its virtues15 collapse16 and fall about it like a tent with a broken pole. There it lies, this novel without a heroine, and what remains17 of it is George Moore himself, a ruin of lovely language and some exquisite18 descriptions of the Sussex downs. For the novelist who has no dramatic power, no fire of conviction within, leans upon nature for support; she lifts him up and enhances his mood without destroying it.
But the defects of a novelist may well be the glories of his brother the autobiographer19, and we find, to our delight, that the very qualities which weaken Mr. Moore’s novels are the making of his memoirs20. This complex character, at once diffident and self-assertive, this sportsman who goes out shooting in ladies’ high-heeled boots, this amateur jockey who loves literature beyond the apple of his eye, this amorist who is so innocent, this sensualist who is so ascetic21, this complex and uneasy character, in short, with its lack of starch22 and pomp and humbug23, its pliability24 and malice25 and shrewdness and incompetence26, is made of too many incompatible27 elements to concentrate into the diamond of a great artist, and is better occupied in exploring its own vagaries28 than in explaining those of other people. For one thing, Mr. Moore is without that robust29 belief in himself which leads men to prophesy30 and create. Nobody was ever more diffident. As a little boy they told him that only an ugly old woman would marry him, and he has never got over it. “For it is difficult for me to believe any good of myself. Within the oftentimes bombastic31 and truculent32 appearance that I present to the world trembles a heart shy as a wren33 in the hedgerow or a mouse along the wainscoting.” The least noise startles him, and the ordinary proceedings34 of mankind fill him with wonder and alarm. Their streets have so many names; their coats have so many buttons; the ordinary business of life is altogether beyond him. But with the timidity of the mouse he has also its gigantic boldness. This meek35 grey innocent creature runs right over the lion’s paws. There is nothing that Mr. Moore will not say; by his own confession36 he ought to be excluded from every drawing-room in South Kensington. If his friends forgive him it is only because to Mr. Moore all things are forgiven. Once when he was a child, “inspired by an uncontrollable desire to break the monotony of infancy,” he threw all his clothes into a hawthorn37 tree and “ran naked in front of my nurse or governess screaming with delight at the embarrassment38 I was causing her.” The habit has remained with him. He loves to take off his clothes and run screaming with delight at the fuss and blush and embarrassment which he is causing that dear old governess, the British Public. But the antics of Mr. Moore, though impish and impudent39, are, after all, so amusing and so graceful40 that the governess, it is said, sometimes hides behind a tree to watch. That scream of his, that garrulous41 chuckle42 as of small birds chattering43 in a nest, is a merry sound; and then how melodiously44 he draws out his long notes when dusk descends46 and the stars rise! Always you will find him haunting the evening, when the downs are fading into waves of silver and the grey Irish fields are melting into the grey Irish hills. The storm never breaks over his head, the thunder never roars in his cars, the rain never drenches47 him. No; the worst that befalls him is that Teresa has not filled the Moderator lamp sufficiently48 full, so that the company which is dining in the garden under the apple tree must adjourn49 to the dining-room, where Mr. Osborne, Mr. Hughes, Mr. Longworth, Mr. Seumas O’Sullivan, Mr. Atkinson and Mr. Yeats are awaiting them.
And then in the dining-room, Mr. Moore sitting down and offering a cigar to his friends, takes up again the thread of that interminable discourse50, which, if it lapses51 into the gulfs of reverie for a moment, begins anew wherever he finds a bench or chair to sit on or can link his arm in a friend’s, or can find even some discreet52 sympathetic animal who will only occasionally lift a paw in silence. He talks incessantly53 about books and politics; of the vision that came to him in the Chelsea road; how Mr. Colville bred Belgian hares on the Sussex downs; about the death of his cat; the Roman Catholic religion; how dogma is the death of literature; how the names of poets determine their poetry; how Mr. Yeats is like a crow, and he himself has been forced to sit on the window sill in his pyjamas54. One thing follows another; out of the, present flowers the past; it is as easy, inconsequent, melodious45 as the smoke of those fragrant55 cigars. But as one listens more attentively56 one perceives that while each topic floats up as easily as cigar smoke into the air, the blue wreaths have a strange fixity; they do not disperse57, they unite; they build up the airy chambers58 of a lifetime, and as we listen in the Temple Gardens, in Ebury Street, in Paris, in Dublin to Mr. Moore talking, we explore from start to finish, from those earliest days in Ireland to these latest in London, the habitation of his soul.
But let us apply Mr. Moore’s own test to Mr. Moore’s own work. What interests him, he says, is not the three or four beautiful poems that a man may have written, but the mind that he brings into the world; and “by a mind I mean a new way of feeling and seeing.” When the fierce tide of talk once more washes the battlements of Mr. Moore’s achievement let us throw into mid-stream these remarks; not one of his novels is a masterpiece; they are silken tents which have no poles; but he has brought a new mind into the world; he has given us a new way of feeling and seeing; he has devised — very painfully, for he is above all things painstaking59, eking60 out a delicate gift laboriously61 — a means of liquidating62 the capricious and volatile63 essence of himself and decanting64 it in these memoirs; and that, whatever the degree, is triumph, achievement, immortality65. If, further, we try to establish the degree we shall go on to say that no one so inveterately66 literary is among the great writers; literature has wound itself about him like a veil, forbidding him the free use of his limbs; the phrase comes to him before the emotion; but we must add that he is nevertheless a born writer, a man who detests67 meals, servants, ease, respectability or anything that gets between him and his art; who has kept his freedom when most of his contemporaries have long ago lost theirs; who is ashamed of nothing but of being ashamed; who says whatever he has it in his mind to say, and has taught himself an accent, a cadence68, indeed a language, for saying it in which, though they are not English, but Irish, will give him his place among the lesser69 immortals70 of our tongue.
点击收听单词发音
1 dismal | |
adj.阴沉的,凄凉的,令人忧郁的,差劲的 | |
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2 pundits | |
n.某一学科的权威,专家( pundit的名词复数 ) | |
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3 judgments | |
判断( judgment的名词复数 ); 鉴定; 评价; 审判 | |
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4 engenders | |
v.产生(某形势或状况),造成,引起( engender的第三人称单数 ) | |
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5 kindles | |
(使某物)燃烧,着火( kindle的第三人称单数 ); 激起(感情等); 发亮,放光 | |
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6 dallying | |
v.随随便便地对待( dally的现在分词 );不很认真地考虑;浪费时间;调情 | |
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7 covertly | |
adv.偷偷摸摸地 | |
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8 obliquely | |
adv.斜; 倾斜; 间接; 不光明正大 | |
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9 tinged | |
v.(使)发丁丁声( ting的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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10 fictitious | |
adj.虚构的,假设的;空头的 | |
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11 intensity | |
n.强烈,剧烈;强度;烈度 | |
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12 hurls | |
v.猛投,用力掷( hurl的第三人称单数 );大声叫骂 | |
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13 folly | |
n.愚笨,愚蠢,蠢事,蠢行,傻话 | |
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14 sincerity | |
n.真诚,诚意;真实 | |
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15 virtues | |
美德( virtue的名词复数 ); 德行; 优点; 长处 | |
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16 collapse | |
vi.累倒;昏倒;倒塌;塌陷 | |
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17 remains | |
n.剩余物,残留物;遗体,遗迹 | |
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18 exquisite | |
adj.精美的;敏锐的;剧烈的,感觉强烈的 | |
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19 autobiographer | |
n.自传作者 | |
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20 memoirs | |
n.回忆录;回忆录传( mem,自oir的名词复数) | |
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21 ascetic | |
adj.禁欲的;严肃的 | |
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22 starch | |
n.淀粉;vt.给...上浆 | |
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23 humbug | |
n.花招,谎话,欺骗 | |
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24 pliability | |
n.柔韧性;可弯性 | |
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25 malice | |
n.恶意,怨恨,蓄意;[律]预谋 | |
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26 incompetence | |
n.不胜任,不称职 | |
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27 incompatible | |
adj.不相容的,不协调的,不相配的 | |
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28 vagaries | |
n.奇想( vagary的名词复数 );异想天开;异常行为;难以预测的情况 | |
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29 robust | |
adj.强壮的,强健的,粗野的,需要体力的,浓的 | |
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30 prophesy | |
v.预言;预示 | |
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31 bombastic | |
adj.夸夸其谈的,言过其实的 | |
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32 truculent | |
adj.野蛮的,粗野的 | |
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33 wren | |
n.鹪鹩;英国皇家海军女子服务队成员 | |
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34 proceedings | |
n.进程,过程,议程;诉讼(程序);公报 | |
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35 meek | |
adj.温顺的,逆来顺受的 | |
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36 confession | |
n.自白,供认,承认 | |
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37 hawthorn | |
山楂 | |
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38 embarrassment | |
n.尴尬;使人为难的人(事物);障碍;窘迫 | |
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39 impudent | |
adj.鲁莽的,卑鄙的,厚颜无耻的 | |
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40 graceful | |
adj.优美的,优雅的;得体的 | |
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41 garrulous | |
adj.唠叨的,多话的 | |
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42 chuckle | |
vi./n.轻声笑,咯咯笑 | |
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43 chattering | |
n. (机器振动发出的)咔嗒声,(鸟等)鸣,啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的,啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
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44 melodiously | |
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45 melodious | |
adj.旋律美妙的,调子优美的,音乐性的 | |
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46 descends | |
v.下来( descend的第三人称单数 );下去;下降;下斜 | |
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47 drenches | |
v.使湿透( drench的第三人称单数 );在某人(某物)上大量使用(某液体) | |
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48 sufficiently | |
adv.足够地,充分地 | |
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49 adjourn | |
v.(使)休会,(使)休庭 | |
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50 discourse | |
n.论文,演说;谈话;话语;vi.讲述,著述 | |
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51 lapses | |
n.失误,过失( lapse的名词复数 );小毛病;行为失检;偏离正道v.退步( lapse的第三人称单数 );陷入;倒退;丧失 | |
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52 discreet | |
adj.(言行)谨慎的;慎重的;有判断力的 | |
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53 incessantly | |
ad.不停地 | |
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54 pyjamas | |
n.(宽大的)睡衣裤 | |
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55 fragrant | |
adj.芬香的,馥郁的,愉快的 | |
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56 attentively | |
adv.聚精会神地;周到地;谛;凝神 | |
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57 disperse | |
vi.使分散;使消失;vt.分散;驱散 | |
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58 chambers | |
n.房间( chamber的名词复数 );(议会的)议院;卧室;会议厅 | |
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59 painstaking | |
adj.苦干的;艰苦的,费力的,刻苦的 | |
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60 eking | |
v.(靠节省用量)使…的供应持久( eke的现在分词 );节约使用;竭力维持生计;勉强度日 | |
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61 laboriously | |
adv.艰苦地;费力地;辛勤地;(文体等)佶屈聱牙地 | |
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62 liquidating | |
v.清算( liquidate的现在分词 );清除(某人);清偿;变卖 | |
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63 volatile | |
adj.反复无常的,挥发性的,稍纵即逝的,脾气火爆的;n.挥发性物质 | |
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64 decanting | |
n.滗析(手续)v.将(酒等)自瓶中倒入另一容器( decant的现在分词 ) | |
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65 immortality | |
n.不死,不朽 | |
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66 inveterately | |
adv.根深蒂固地,积习地 | |
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67 detests | |
v.憎恶,嫌恶,痛恨( detest的第三人称单数 ) | |
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68 cadence | |
n.(说话声调的)抑扬顿挫 | |
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69 lesser | |
adj.次要的,较小的;adv.较小地,较少地 | |
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70 immortals | |
不朽的人物( immortal的名词复数 ); 永生不朽者 | |
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