As I returned home after the dinner at Tonks's lightly weighing my friends' talents, the thought suddenly struck me that in leaving London I was leaving them for ever, whether in a week or six weeks I did not know; only of this was I sure, that my departure could not be much longer delayed; and while passing through Grosvenor Gardens, I began to wonder by what means the Destiny I had just heard would pull me out of my flat in Victoria Street. Two years or eighteen months of my lease still remained; this lag end had been advertised, but no desirable tenant had presented himself, and it did not seem to me that I could go away to Dublin leaving the flat empty, taking with me all my pictures and furniture. A house in Dublin would be part of my equipment as a Gaelic League propagandist, and it would cost me a hundred pounds a year; houses in Dublin are rarely in good repair, some hundreds might have to be spent upon it; and, falling into an armchair, I asked myself where all this money was to come from. My will is always at ebb when the necessity arises of writing to my banker to ask him how many hundred pounds are between me and destitution. We are but a heredity. My father was a spendthrift and hated accounts, and to me accounts are as mysterious as Chinese, as repellent. We are the same man with a difference; the pain that his pecuniary embarrassment caused him seems to have fallen on me with such force that I am naturally economical. My agent said when he visited me in the Temple: Very few would be content to live in a cock-loft like you, George. His remark or a certain lady's objection to the three flights of stairs had tempted me out of the Temple, and now hatred of the Boer War was forcing me into what seemed a pit of ruin. Two hundred and fifty a year I shall be paying for houses, I said, and yet I must go; even if I am to end my days in the workhouse I must go, even though to engage in Gaelic League propaganda may break up the mould of my mind. The mould of my mind doesn't interest me any longer, it is an English mould; better break it up at once and have done with it. Whereupon my thoughts faded away into a vague meditation in which ideas did not shape themselves, and next morning I rose from my bed undecided whether I should go or stay, but knowing all the while that I was going. It was a queer feeling, day passing over day, and myself saying to myself: I am twelve hours nearer departure than I was yesterday, yet having no idea how I was going to be freed from my flat, but certain that something would come to free me. And the something that came was the Westminster Trust, a Company that had been formed for the purpose of acquiring property in Victoria Street.

It had been creeping up from Westminster for some time past, absorbing house after house, turning the grey austere residential mansions built in 1830 into shops. It had reached within a few doors of me about the time of my landlord's death, and, as soon as his property passed into the hands of the Trust, notice was served upon the tenants that their leases would not be renewed. One lease, that of a peaceable General Officer who lived over my head and never played the piano, expired about that time, and as arrangements could not be made for turning his flat at once into offices it was let, temporarily, to a foreign financier, who demanded more light. The extra windows that were put in to suit his pleasure and convenience seemed to the Company's architect such an improvement that the Company offered to put extra windows into my rooms free of cost.

But don't you see that if two windows be put in, the present admirable relation of wall space to window will be destroyed?

Light, after all—

I engaged these rooms, I said, because I believed that they would afford me the quiet necessary for the composition of books, but for the last three weeks I haven't heard the sweet voice of a silent hour. Have you an ear for music? Tell me if a silent hour is not comparable to a melody by Mozart? You live in a quiet suburban neighbourhood, I'm sure, and can tell me. All the beautiful peace of Peckham is in your face.

The manager regretted that the improvements over my head had caused me inconvenience, and he suggested putting me upon half-rent until these were completed; a surprisingly generous offer, so thought I at the time; but very soon I discovered that the reduction of my rent gave him all kinds of rights, including the building of a wall depriving my pantry of eight or nine inches of light, and the chipping away of my window-sills. The news that I was about to lose my window-sills brought me out of my bedroom in pyjamas, and, throwing up the window, I got out hurriedly and seated myself on the sill, thinking that by so doing I could defy the workmen. Bill, drop yer 'ammer on his fingernails. Better wait and see 'ow long 'e'll stand this fine frosty morning in his pi-jamas. The wisdom of this workman inspired my servant to cry to me to come in. We both feared pneumonia, but if I did not dress myself very quickly, the workmen would have knocked away the window-sill. It was a race between us, and I think that half the sill was gone when I was partially dressed, so I seated myself on the last half.

Let him bide, cried one workman to his mate who was threatening my fingers with the hammer; and they continued their improvements about my windows, filling my rooms with dust and noise. I know not how it started, but a tussle began between me and one of the stone-cutters. We'll see what the magistrate will have to say about this bloody assault, said the man as he climbed down the ladder, and when I had finished my dressing I went to my solicitor, who seemed to look upon the struggle on the scaffolding as very serious. His application for redress was answered by a letter saying that if a summons were issued against the Company, a cross-summons would be issued against me for assault on one of the workmen. A civil action, the solicitor said, was my remedy; and I should have gone on with this if the Company had not expressed a good deal of regret when the tradesmen engaged in laying down a parquet floor for the financier brought down my dining-room ceiling with a crash. The director sent men at once to sweep up the litter, and he ordered his new tenant, the financier, to restore the ceiling; but my solicitor advised me to refuse the tradesmen admission, and by doing so I found that I had again put myself in the wrong; the ceiling was put up at my expense after a long interval during which I dined in the drawing-room. My solicitor's correspondence with the Company did not procure me any special terms; the Company merely repeated an offer they had previously made, which was to buy up the end of my lease for £100, a very inadequate compensation, it seemed to me, for the annoyance I had endured; but as I felt that my solicitor could not cope with the Company, I came gradually to the conclusion that I had better accept the £100. It would pay for the removal of all my furniture and pictures to Dublin, leaving something over for the house which I would have to hire and at once, for the offer of the Company was subject to my giving up possession at the end of the month.

I ordered my trunk to be packed that evening, and next morning was at the house-agent's office in Grafton Street; and while the clerk made out a long list of houses for me I told him my requirements. The houses in Merrion Square are too large for a single man of limited income; I had lived with my mother in one when boycotting brought me back from France; the houses in Stephen's Green are as fine, but even if one could have been gotten at a reasonable rental, Stephen's Green did not tempt me, my imagination turning rather to a quiet, old-fashioned house with a garden situated in some sequestered, half-forgotten street in which old ladies live—pious women who would pass my window every Sunday morning along the pavement on their way to church. The house-agent did not think he had exactly the house, street, and the inhabitants I described upon his books, but there was a house he thought would suit me in Upper Mount Street. I remembered the street dimly; a chilly street with an uninteresting church at the end of it. A bucolic relation had taken a house in Upper Mount Street in the 'eighties and had given parties with a view to ridding himself of two uninteresting sisters-in-law, but the experiment had failed. So I knew what the houses in Upper Mount Street were like—ugly, common, expensive. Why trouble to visit them? All the same, I visited two or three, and from the doorstep of one I caught sight of Mount Street Crescent, bending prettily about a church. But there were no bills in any window, and the jarvey was asked why he didn't take me to Lower Mount Street.

Because, he said, all the houses there are lodging-houses, and he turned his horse's head and drove me into a delightful draggle-tailed end of the town, silhouetting charmingly, I remembered, on the evening sky, for I had never failed to admire Baggot Street when I visited Dublin. There is always something strangely attractive in a declining neighbourhood, and thinking of the powdered lackeys that must have stood on steps that now a poor slavey washes, I began to dream. The house that I had been directed to was no doubt a fine one, but its fate is declension, for it lives in my memory not by marble chimney-pieces nor Adam ceilings, but by the bite of the most ferocious flea that I ever met, caught from the caretaker, no doubt, at the last moment, for I was on the car before he nipped me in the middle of the back, exactly where I can't scratch, and from there he jumped down upon my loins and nipped me again and again, until I arrived at the Shelbourne, where I had to strip naked to discover him.

If the Creator of fleas had not endowed them with a passion for whiteness, humanity would perish, I muttered, descending the stairs.

Are you after catching him, sir? the jarvey asked.

Yes, and easily, for he was drunk with my blood as you might be upon John Jameson on Saturday night, and we drove away to Fitzwilliam Square.

The houses there are large and clean, but the rents were higher than I wished to pay, and it did not seem to me that I should occupy an important enough position in the Square. Something a little more personal, I said to myself, and drove away to Leeson Street: a repetition of Baggot Street, decrepit houses that had once sheltered an aristocracy, now falling into the hands of nuns and lodging-house keepers. It was abandoned for Harcourt Street, but despite the attraction of some magnificent areas and lamp-posts with old lanterns, I decided that I would not live in Harcourt Street and returned to the agent, who produced another list and next day I visited Pembroke Road and admired the great flights of granite steps that lead to doorways that seemed to bespeak a wife and family so emphatically that I drove to Clyde Road. And finding it too pompous and suburban, too significant of distillers and brewers, I told the jarvey to drive me to Waterloo Road, a long monotonous road, with some pretty houses and gardens, connecting Pembroke Road with Upper Leeson Street; but unable to associate it in my mind with my mission to Ireland, I cried out: Castlewood Avenue! The jarvey took me thither, but the avenue, at once shabby and genteel, disappointed me. I cried to the jarvey: Clonskeagh! He took me up the Rathmines Road into Clonskeagh, where I found some pleasant houses, not one of which was to let—the old story of houses that had long been let remaining on the agent's books. After Clonskeagh we wandered through Terenure into a desolate region which the jarvey told me was Clondalkin, and followed a lonely road that seemed to lead away from all human habitation.

But you see, I said to the driver, I'm looking for a house in the town.

It is to The Moat we are going, he answered; and half an hour later our horse stopped before a drawbridge, which I doubted not would cost a great deal of money to put it into working order. But when it is lifted my friends will know that I am composing; and it can be let down at tea-time. A grand sight it will be to see them, all Gaelic Leaguers of course, walk across it into the moated grange. About a thousand pounds, the caretaker said, would make the place quite comfortable, and I answered that The Moat appealed to me in many ways, but that I had not come to Ireland in search of a picturesque residence, but in the hope of reviving the language of the tribe whose wont it was to come down from the rim of blue hills over yonder to invade Dublin and to be repulsed by different garrisons of the Pale. One was no doubt ensconced here, and thinking of Mount Venus, the house that I had visited high up in the Dublin mountains many years ago, wondering whether it would suit me better to live there than to live at The Moat, I said to myself: I shall have to live in one or the other, for there doesn't seem to be any house to let in Dublin City.

A thousand pounds are needed to make The Moat habitable, and that is more than I wish to spend, I said to the clerk, and begged him to give me another list of houses; again he searched his books, and a few more addresses were added to the list.

I'll try these tomorrow, and, leaving the office, I followed the pavement along Trinity College Gardens, my feet taking me instinctively to AE. He settles everybody's difficulties and consoles the afflicted.

If I don't find a house, I said to him, in Dublin, I shall have to return to that Inferno which is London, and I attempted a description of Mafeking night and other nights. There are no houses, AE, to let. I've searched everywhere and can find nothing but The Moat, and Mount Venus, no doubt, is still vacant, but it's a good five miles distant from Ranfarnham, and you won't be able to come to see me very often.

AE's grey eyes lit up with a kindly, witty smile.

Nature, he said, has given you energy, vitality, and perseverance, my dear Moore, but she has denied you the gift of patience, and patience above all things is needed when seeking a house.

But I've searched Merrion Square, Fitzwilliam Square, Harcourt Street, and many a suburb.

There were at the time three bank managers waiting to receive instructions from him, but he listened to my story, and I noticed that the anxious typist with a sheaf of letters in her hand did not distract his attention from me; he dismissed her, but without abruptness, and came down to the door refusing to believe that it would be impossible for me to find a house in Dublin.

Ireland thrives in her belief in you, I answered; perhaps I shall. For two days I did not hear from him, but on the third morning, as I was asking myself if it would be worth while to hire another car to go forth again to hunt through Mountjoy Square and Rutland Square where the aristocracy before the Union had built their mansions, the porter came to tell me that a gentleman wanted to see me. It was AE, who had come to tell me that he had found me a house; within a few minutes' walk of Stephen's Green. The perfect residence, he said, for a man of letters; one of five little eighteenth-century houses shut off from the thoroughfare, and with an orchard opposite which may be yours for two or three pounds a year if you know how to bargain with the landlord.

As he spoke these words we turned a corner and came into sight of an old iron gateway; behind it were the five eighteenth-century houses, five modest little houses, but every one with tall windows; a single window above the area, no doubt the dining-room, and above it a pair of windows with balconies; behind them were the drawing-rooms, and the windows above these were the bedroom windows.

Not a single pane of plate-glass in the house, AE! The room above mine is the cook's room, and if there are some back rooms?

He assured me that the houses were deep and had several back rooms; the drawing-rooms were large and lofty, and, as well as he remembered, the back windows in the dining and drawing-rooms overlooked the convent garden.

I should have tramped round Dublin for a month without finding anything, and in three days you have found the house that suits me. Tell me how you did it.



And now you can walk there whenever you please, and dine with me under that apple-tree, AE, if the Irish summer is warm enough.

But you haven't seen the house yet.

I don't want to see the house until my furniture is in it. I'm no judge of unfurnished houses.

But he insisted on ringing the bell, and while he was making inquiries about the state of the roof and the kitchen flue, I was upstairs admiring marble mantelpieces of no mean design, and cottages that the back windows overlooked.

AE, I beseech you to leave off talking about boilers and cisterns and all such tiresome things. Come upstairs at once and see the dear little slum, and the two washerwomen in it. I wish we could hear what they're saying.

One does hear some bad language sometimes, the caretaker murmured, turning her head away.

I'm sure they blaspheme splendidly. Blasphemy is the literature of Catholic countries. AE, what an inveterate mystic you are, as practical as St Teresa; whereas I am content if the windows and mantelpieces are eighteenth century. Don't let the slum trouble you, my good woman. A man of letters never objects to a slum. He sharpens his pen there.

The convent garden, sir, on the right—

Yes, I see, and a great many night-shirts out drying.

No, sir, the nuns' underwear.

Better and better. Into what Eden have you led me, AE? Who is the agent of this Paradise? Is his name Peter?

No, sir; Mr Thomas Burton.

And his address?

He lives at the Hill, Wimbledon. The landlord lives in Wicklow.

How extraordinary! The landlord of an Irish property living in Ireland and the agent in London. Shall I have to go back to England and interview this agent? AE? I can't go back.

You won't be quit of England until your affairs are settled.

But I can't go back.

AE smiled so kindly that I half forgot my anger, and my impulsiveness began to amuse me.

You're always right, AE.

Don't say so, for there's nobody so boring—

As the righteous man.... But come into the garden, where we shall dine, I hope, often. A wilderness it seems at present, but the hen-coops and swings can be removed. He took out his watch. I begged him to stay. He said he couldn't, and bade me goodbye quickly. But, AE, I'm going—

Whither I went that evening I cannot remember; all I know for certain is that at some assembly, not at the Mansion House or at the Rotunda, therefore in some private house (I am sure it was in some private house, for I remember gaseliers, silk cushions, ladies' necks), I rushed up to Hyde, both hands extended, my news upon my lips.

Hyde, I've come over; it's all settled. I've been driving about Dublin for a week without finding a house, and would have had to go away, leave you—think of it!—if AE hadn't come to my help in the nick of time. He has found me such a beautiful house, Hyde, where you'll come to dine, and where, perhaps, we'll be able to talk together in Irish, for I am determined to learn the language.

You don't mean it? You don't tell me that you've left London for good? You're only joking, and he laughed that vacant little laugh which is so irritating.

But tell me, are you advancing?

We're getting on finely. If we could only get the Intermediate—

The Intermediate is most important; but what I want to know is if I shall be able to help you.

You've done a great deal already, but—

But what?

Your book Parnell and His Island will go against you with the League.

I should have thought the League was here to accept those that are willing to help Ireland to recover her language, and not to bother about my past.

That's the way we are over here, he said, and again I had to endure his irritating little laugh. But I'm thinking.... The League might be reconciled to your book if you were to issue it with a sub-title—Parnell and His Island, or Ireland Without Her Language. I was reading your book the other day, and do you know I wouldn't say that it wasn't your best book?

It is mere gabble, I answered, and cannot be reissued.

You can't think that? And dropping a hint that I might be more useful to them in England than in Ireland, he turned away to tell dear Edward that he was delighted to see him. Now have you come up from the West for the meeting? You don't tell me so? I don't believe you. Edward reassured him. And your friend, George Moore, has come over from London; and with you both to back the League—

How are you, George? I heard you had arrived.

What, already!

Father Dineen saw you; I met him in Kildare Street this afternoon and he told me to tell you that the Keating Branch were saying that you're coming over here to write them up in the English papers.

You start your rumours very quickly in Dublin, I answered angrily, and a stupider one I never heard. I don't write for the papers; even if I did, the Keating Branch—I know nothing about it. Hyde, I wish you would use your influence to stop—

I was just telling him that he should reissue Parnell and His Island with a sub-title Ireland Without Her Language. Now, what do you think? We're all very anxious to hear what you think, Martyn.

It would have been much better if he had never written that book. I told him so at the time. I have always told you, George, that I understand Ireland. I mayn't understand England—

But what do you mean when you say that you understand Ireland?

Yeats joined our group, and when Edward said that I had decided to come to live in Dublin he tried a joke, but it got lost in the folds of his style, and he looked at Hyde and at Martyn disconsolate. MacNeill, the Vice-President of the Gaelic League, sidled through the crowd—an honest fellow with a great deal of brown beard. But I couldn't get him to express any opinion regarding my coming, or the view that the League would take of it.

But your subscription will be received gratefully, he said, moving away to avoid further interrogation.

Money, I answered, is always received with gratitude, but I've come to work for the League as well as to subscribe to it, and shall be glad to hear what kind of work you propose to put me to. Would you care to send me to America to collect funds? What do you think? A Gaelic League missionary?

MacNeill answered that if I went to America and collected money the League would be glad to receive it; but he didn't think that the League would send me over as its representative. They would be glad, however, to receive some journalistic help from me. One of the questions that was engaging the League's attention at the time was how to improve The Claidheamh Soluis and he suggested that I should call upon the editor at my convenience. The last words, at my convenience, seemed unnecessary, for had I not come to Dublin to serve the Gaelic League?

Next morning, in great impatience, I sought the offices of the Gaelic League, and after many inquiries of the passers-by, discovered the number hidden away in a passage, and then the offices themselves at the top of a dusty staircase. An inscription in a strange language was assuring, and a memory of the County of Mayo in my childhood told me that the syllables that bade me enter were Gaelic and not German. A couple of rough-looking men, peasants, no doubt, and native Irish speakers, sat on either side of a large table with account-books before them, and in answer to my question if I could see the editor, one of them told me that he was not in at present.

But you speak Irish? I said.

Both of them nodded, and, forgetful of the business upon which I had come, I began to question them as to their knowledge of the language, and I am sure that my eyes beamed when they told me that they both contributed to the Claidheamh.

Your Vice-President MacNeill sent me here. He would like me to write an article. I am George Moore.

I'll tell the editor when he comes in, and if you'll send in your article he'll consider it. The next few numbers are full up.

This man must be a member of the Keating Branch, said I to myself; and, though aware of my folly, I could not restrain my words, but fell to assuring him at once that I had not come to Ireland to write the Keating Branch up in the English papers. He was sure I hadn't, but my article would have to be submitted to the editor all the same.

I appreciate your independence, and I'll submit an article, but in England editors are not quite so Olympian to me.

The men returned to their account-books, and I left the office a little crestfallen, seeking somebody who would neither look upon my coming with suspicion, nor treat it as a joke; but finding no one until I met AE in College Green coming out of a vegetarian eating-house, lighting his pipe after his dish of lentils.

Ah, my dear Moore!

It is a great good fortune to have a friend whose eyes light up always when they see one, and whose mind stoops or lifts itself instinctively to one's trouble, divining it, whether it be spiritual or material. Before I had time to speak he had begun to feel that Cathleen ni Houlihan was not treating me very kindly, and he allowed me to entertain him with an account of my visit to the Gaelic League, and the rebuffs that I had received from the assistant-editors of the Claidheamh Soluis.

Neither of them knew my name, neither had seen my article in the Nineteenth Century, and last night Hyde said perhaps I would be more use to them over in England. Nobody wants me here, AE, and yet I'm coming. I know I am.

But there is other work to do here, he answered, beside the Gaelic League.

None that would interest me. All I know for certain is that I am coming despite jokes and suspicion. When I told Hyde that I had disposed of the lease of my flat he said: Now, is that so? You don't tell me you've left London for good? Yeats tries to treat my coming as an exquisite joke. Edward is afraid that I may trouble somebody's religious convictions. Nobody wants me, AE. Can you tell me why I am coming to Dublin? If you can you're a cleverer man than I am. You are that in any case. All I had hoped for was a welcome and some enthusiasm; no bonfires, torchlight processions, banners, bands, Cead mille failte's, nothing of that kind, only a welcome. It may be that I did expect some appreciation of the sacrifice I was making, for you see I'm throwing everything into the flames. Isn't it strange, AE? You understand, but the others don't, so I'll tell you something that I heard Whistler say years ago. It was in the Old Grosvenor Gallery. I have forgotten what we were talking about; one remembers the words but not what led up to them. Nothing, he said, I suppose, matters to you except your writing. And his words went to the very bottom of my soul, frightening me; and I have asked myself again and again if I were capable of sacrificing brother, sister, mother, fortune, friend, for a work of art. One is near madness when nothing really matters but one's work, and I tell you that Whistler's words frightened me just as Rochefoucauld's famous epigram has frightened thousands. You know it? Something about the misfortunes of our best friends never being wholly disagreeable to us. We don't take pleasure in hearing of the misfortunes of our friends, but there is a truth in Rochefoucauld's words all the same; and it wasn't until the Boer War drove me out of England that I began to think that Whistler's words mightn't be truer than Rochefoucauld's.

AE took out his watch and said he must be getting back to his office.

I'm crossing tonight, I cried after him, and in the steamer's saloon all I had not said to him rambled on and on in my head, and the summary of it all is that it might be better for me if Whistler's words were true, for in leaving England there could be no doubt that I was leaving a literary career behind me. England had been my inspiration. A Mummer's Wife and Esther Waters seemed conclusive proof that I could only write about England. Then, what is it, I cried, starting up from my berth, that is driving me out of England? for it is not natural to feel as determined as I feel, especially for me, who am not at all self-willed. I am being driven, and I am being pushed headlong into the unknown.

There was no motion on board, and believing that we must be by this time nearing the Welsh coast, I climbed the brassy stairs and stood watching the unwrinkled tide sweeping round the great rock. Along the foreland the shapes of the fields were visible in the moon-haze, and, while studying the beauty of the world by night, a lone star reminded me of Stella and I said:

A man is never wholly unhappy as long as he is sure of his mistress's love.

After all, she said, some hours later, a month isn't a long while.



For the garden is lower than the street, and in the ditch (I know not how else to explain it) there are hawthorns and laburnums.

Four walks, she said, and a grass plot.

There's a walk down the middle.

Which can be sodded over. But why should I trouble to arrange your garden for you since I shall not see you any more?

But you will come to paint in Ireland?

Do you think that you'd like me to?

My dear Stella, the question is can I live in Ireland without you? and I besought her for the sake of her art. The Irish mountains are as beautiful as the Welsh. Dublin is backed by blue hills, and you won't be obliged to live in a detestable cottage as you were last year in Wales, but in a fine house. And I told her that in my search for one to live in I had come across a house in Clondalkin, or near it, that would suit her perfectly—a moated stead built in the time of Anne, and, seeing she was interested, I described how I had crossed the moat by a little bridge, and between the bridge and the front door there were about thirty yards of gravel. The left wall of the house rises sheer out of the moat; on the other side there is a pathway, and at the back a fairly large garden—close on a hundred yards, I should say—and you like gardening, Stella.

I'm afraid that so much stagnant water—

But, dear one, the water of the moat is not stagnant; it is fed at the upper end by a stream, and it trickles away by the bridge into a brook.

And the house itself? she asked.

It is two-storeyed and there are some fine rooms in it, one that I think you could paint in. My recollection is a little dim, but I remember a dining-room and a very handsome drawing-room, and I think my impression was that a thousand pounds spent upon it would give you such a house as you couldn't get anywhere else. Of that I am sure, and the country about it is all that your art requires. I remember a row of fine chestnuts, and beyond it a far-reaching stretch of tilth to the valley of the Liffey. Promise me that you'll come? She promised. And now, dear one, tell me of some one who will remove my furniture.