Page:The Yellow Book - 07.djvu/160

, his style is as bad as a Christian's style can be. It is harsh, it is slovenly, it is uncouth; fluency, melody, distinction, charm it lacks utterly; it is sometimes downright ungrammatical; it is very often common, banale, pressmanish; and yet Structurally, in its masses, it could scarcely be better. It has (as Mr. Moore would say) line; its drawing, its perspective, its values are the drawing, the perspective, the values of a master. It is a symmetrical temple built of soiled and broken bricks.

How could a writer who knows his Flaubert as Mr. Moore knows his Flaubert, speak of "sleep pressing upon Mildred's eye-lids," as Mr. Moore does on page 8? What of la phrase toute faite? How could any one but a pressman say of his heroine that there was "a little pathetic won't-you-care-for-me expression" in her face? On page 33, Mildred Lawson looked at Ralph Hoskin "in glad surprise." On page 49 we have an epigram, a paradox: something or other "is as insignificant as life." On page 51 Ralph says, "I had to make my living ever since I was sixteen." On page 56 Mr. Moore says, "In the park they could talk without fear of being overheard, and they took interest in the changes that spring was effecting in this beautiful friendly nature." Shade of Stevenson, shade of Maupassant, what prose! On page 75: "The roadway was full of fiacres plying for hire, or were drawn up in lines three deep." Shade of Lindley Murray, what grammar! And on the same page: "Elsie wished that Walter would present her with a fan." It is almost enough to make one agree with the old fogey who remarked, anent Esther Waters, "Mr. Moore writes about servants, and should be read by them."

But no, the old fogey was wrong. Bad as Mr. Moore's style is in its materials, it is very nearly perfect in its structure; and, what's more, it's personal. You feel that it is a living voice, an individual's voice, that it is Mr. George Moore's voice, which is addressing