FICTION.
H2L0i§E AND ABELARD.*
THE present writer, if he is to be as candid as a reviewer ought to be, must confess that he approached Mr. Moore's book with a considerable amount of prejudice. Though he admired Esther Waters, and reviewed it in these columns same twenty years ago, he has by no means the sympathy of approbation or even comprehension for Mr. Moore's work. On the contrary, he regards a great deal of it with a mixture of weariness and hritation. The perusal of the greater part of the present book does nothing to blot out this prejudice, but brings a great deal to support it. Like so much of Mr. Moore's work, it can only be described as sodden with sex. Bacon declared that the stage was more beholden to love than to life. This is ten times as true in regard to a section of modern fiction. Outside an asylum for erotomaniacs, the world is not governed by perpetual storms cf unrestrainable animal passion.
We must add to this d.sa:Ality the fact that Mr. Moore has chosen to write his book in a kind of diluted Wardour Street which is generally wearying and often ridiculous. His characters do not say " Tush ! " or " Zooks ! " He has avoided the worst blunders of what the Americans so well call the " hath doth " style, but there is still an air of sham mediacvalism. Such phrases as " Art weary " or the like are every now and then encoun- tered. Again, though the conventions of the romanticists of the thirties, forties, and fifties are generally guarded against, there is too much talk about " Ousels " and " Willow beds." The effect is like that pjuduced by some painstaking attempt to imitate the paintings in a fifteenth-century MS. of some French love-tale. There is plenty of learning, and maybe plenty of dexterous brushwork, but all the same the total effect is disagreeable.
Finally, one's prejudice against the book is heightened by the fact that there is always something per se a little ridiculous in the Heldise and Abelard story. This is partly due to the nature of the tragedy, and still more to the fact that the victims of a violent " third party " theological quarrel, coupled with celibate vows, are forced to conduct the dregs of their crusade of love through an epistolary correspondence. The letter is distinctly a non-conductor of sympathy when it is used for a rampage of the passions. Finally, the Helcuse and Abelard story was for us made impossible by Pope. Pope of course wrote some extra. ordinarily beautiful verse in the course of his wallowing in poor Memo's miseries, but, taken as a whole, the poem is prepos- terous as a love romance. Though it was brutal of her, one cannot help thinking Lady Mary Wortley Montagu justified in turning up her beautiful nose and laughing off the whole business. Like the woman of the world as well as the genius that she was, she could not stomach Helorses particular frenzies. She knew something about love-making—too much, some of her contem- poraries would have said—but she was well aware that it was not • /mate and Abllard. ByG. Moore. 2 vols. £3 3s. Printed privately
for subscribeis only. "
the kind of literary caterwauling depicted in the poem. The invitation to the " tiles " contained in the last couplet had no attractions for her warm but sane nature.
We feel sure that if poor Abelard's misadventure must become the subject of literature, it had better be treated with the humorous humanity of Trietram Shandy (cf. the Widow Wadinan's inquiry through the medium of her maid and Corporal Trim in regard to " my uncle's " wound).
So much by way of confession. And now to be candid. We have to admit, and had better do it ungrudgingly, that our prejudice, our justifiable criticism, and even our nausea at what we must once again call the soddenness of the book on the sexual side were one and all swept away by the deeply moving end of this strange book. Tho nobility, gentleness, and kindli- ness of the last pages make amends for all the ineptitudes, moral and literary, of the rest of the work. How great is the tribute to the humanizing and vitalizing effect of art—and by art we mean not merely craftsmanship, but the inspiration without which art is indeed a dead and worthless thing. The story has a thousand faults, but as we close the volume we forget them all.
When, after nine years of agony, Heldise and Abelard meet at last, and each tells the other how things have befallen, the story puts on a new style, and we read with fascination the tale illuminated by a poet's touch. To show the nature of Mr. Moore's artistry we might quote from the explanation between the lovers. Instead we will take our sample from the fascinating account of the journey taken from Paris into Brittany by Abelard and Helo‘se, she followed by some of her convent friends. Here is the account of their start:— "On throwing open the casement Hdlotse saw Abdlard on a chestnut hackney, and there were five others all of the same kin, stout, compact ponies, with large bushy tails and manes, wilful eyes, tiny hooves, and shaggy fetlocks. The five nuns rode on pillions, Abelard deeming a pillion more suitable to their religious garb and less tiring to women than riding astride. Agatha, Josiane and Paula, having little habit of horseback, would be barely able to keep astride on a pony, he said, and even when they were securely strapped in upon a pillion, he had to turn to them with words of encouragement, saying they were not to feel afraid if their ponies put back their ears, for that meant wickedness. He promised them that they should rest at noon, and in this hope the nuns rode across the Little Bridge into a silent country of shrivelled hedges and grey fields, with the hillsides shrouded in grey mist. As they ambled the hooves of the hackneys rang out from the frozen clods, and all seeming to be going well, Abdlard turned in his saddle, crying to them that they must not clutch at their bridles, for the ponies will not trip if you allow them to look after themselves. But my pony will go too fast if I do not hold him in,' Josiane answered. ' And my pony will follow Josiane's,' Agatha cried out. ' And I shall be left all alone, for my pony is lazy,' said Madelon. ' Your ponies will settle down to their amble,' Abelard replied, ' and will be loth to leave each other ; nor will they pass us on the road.' And when another league was accomplished without a bolt, a runaway, or a fall, Abdlard felt compelled to turn in his saddle to remark that the ponies were now travelling in good order, and that they would reach an inn at noon where they could rest."
It is a notable piece of craftsmanship to use this gloriors riding tour as a rest from the great emotional strain which precedes and follows it.
We will only make one more quotation. It is one which we feel sure our readers will be grateful for :-
" At noon the sky was blue, the sun was shining ; larks rose wet-winged from the fields singing, and in. a little while (four hours later) the day was declining, and riding through the dusk they saw great companies of rooks flopping home through the sky, making for some rooky woods about a nobleman's rostle. The birds came in thousands, and then there was a lull, a talking, a great shuffling of the branches, as the pilgrims rode beneath them. Again the sky was filled with rooks ; at every opening of the trees they caught sight of late-comers, and in the blue gloom of the wintry evening, in the hour that is not day nor night, the bats zigzagged round byre and barn, flying almost in the faces of the travellers, casting shadows on the moonlit road and then disappearing in the mist. There were still some miles to ride before they reached the next village, and Abelard and HeloSse rode immersed in the sad belief that their lives were wasted and that their last hope was heaven. Abdlard believed in heaven, therefore Heloise believed, and, united at last, they rode to Troyes, thinking how they were to live out the few years that remained for them to live, thereby gaining an immortal happiness, the letters germinating in their minds as they rode, hints of them appearing in their talk as mile after mile went by. But it would be vain, indeed, to record their lives and their talk further, for the rest of their lives and their speech are on record."
And so we take our leave of Mr. George Moore's book- " -A made a good end."
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