342
GEORGE MOORE AND JOHN FREEMAN
Freeman: Forgive me. You intend to write an essay about her?
Moore: An essay I must write about somebody, for I am short of copy. You remember that I withdrew Impressions and Opinions from the list of books that Liveright is publishing in America.
Freeman: I have heard that Mr Arthur Symons speaks of Impressions and Opinions as your best book.
Moore: Arthur Symons speaks out of vague memories. If he were to open the book again he would see at once that it lacked unity of subject and language. How could it be else, for I was glad then to collect articles that I had written for various newspapers; and so long as I was saying something that seemed entertaining I was satisfied.
Freeman: Unity of subject and language is an almost grandiloquent view to take, one that George Eliot herself might have taken.
Moore: You think it too purposeful? It may be; but if we are artists our lives are spent in a continual striving after perfection, and in this striving we very often lose something that we have already won; but that can't be helped.
Freeman: So the new book which will replace Impressions and Opinions will be a unity?
Moore: You put a meaning upon my words that they have not. I said I would strive towards some sort of unity, something that would not seem at a first glance like flagrant journalism. You asked me if I am writing an essay. No; I am weary of essays, and I don't write them well; perhaps that’s the reason why I am weary of them.
Freeman: And the name of the new book?
Moore: Conversations in Ebury Street.
Freeman: Ah, I like the title. But why in Ebury Street? Why not simply Conversations? Since Landor nobody has attempted conversations, and after the long interval it has come to you to revive a form in which criticism can be conducted more agreeably than in the essay.
Moore: My admiration for Landor is without limit; I place him above Shakespeare, and to imitate him would be honour enough for me. But it was not Landor that prompted me to go and do likewise; the form rose out of what I had to say quite naturally. I was tempted, I know not why, but I was tempted to examine
