have lagged or turned aside and the reed not been cut to which he owes his redemption from the beast. Your shrubbery, I admit, is but a trivial objection; a more serious criticism of Waste is your politician's lack of courtesy.
Barker: Courtesy was not a characteristic of the politician I had in mind. But if you admit the chase—
Moore: Admit the chase, Barker! But who could deny the right of chase?—so long as it is conducted with courtesy.
Barker: I am afraid your meaning escapes me. I'll ask you to speak more plainly.
Moore: In writing an elaborate work something is overlooked, and not seldom something essential. In writing Waste you do not seem to have remembered that to kiss a lady once is most impolite.
Barker: My politician's transgression was barely possible, but it was possible once. A second kiss would have been a vulgarity.
Moore: A thing so deeply implanted in human nature as a kiss, Barker, cannot, I think, be considered vulgar. And being a man of the eighteenth century (the eighteenth century continued in Ireland till 1870) I expected you to make amends for the shrubbery by introducing your characters to us in an arbour, on a terrace, or a balcony.
Barker: William took Esther Waters on the Downs once and then abandoned her, so will you tell me how my politician differs from your footman?
Moore: If Esther and William did not walk out again on the Downs the fault lay not with William, but with Esther. Her violent temper—
Barker: A quick parry of yours, Moore.
Moore: For a moment I was embarrassed, so quick was your thrust, and remembered only just in time—
Barker: We will forget this passage of wits in which neither is worsted, and you'll tell me what you think of the new play.
Moore: My impression is, after a first hearing, that the new play is the best you have written. The qualities of craftsmanship, of course, are the same as in your other plays—a very subtle and yet apparently easy construction, pointed dialogue, never a word wasted.
Barker: But I thought you preferred abundance to reticence, Shakespeare's method to Ibsen's?
