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GEORGE MOORE AND JOHN FREEMAN
. . . The pool upon the grave had soaked away into the ground, and in its place was a hollow. The disturbed earth was washed away over the grass and pathway in the guise of the brown mud he had already seen, and it spotted the marble tombstone with the same stains. Nearly all the flowers were washed clean out of the ground, and they lay, roots upwards, on the spots whither they had been splashed by the stream."
Freeman: From what book are you reading?
Moore: Far From the Madding Crowd.
Freeman: One of his best books!
Moore: Then I have done him no injustice in quoting from it. The gargoyle may direct its vengeance, but not the torrent.
Freeman: Would you mind reading the passage again?
Moore: "The persistent torrent from the gurgoyle's jaws directed all its vengeance into the grave.
Freeman: I suppose you are right.
Moore: "The rich tawny mould was stirred into motion, and boiled like chocolate." Can that image be defended?
Freeman: Nobody seeks to defend it.
Moore: A pool does not roar, and flowers do not writhe, and when Mr Hardy tells us that the violets turned slowly upside down, my thoughts are directed to ducks in a pond, despite the fact that ducks turn quickly upside down. "Soon the snowdrop and other bulbs danced in the boiling mass like ingredients in a cauldron." Is a cauldron the image that would rise up in the mind of a poet, and would he use the word ingredients? "Nearly all the flowers were washed clean (sic) out of the ground, and they lay, roots upwards, on the spots whither they had been splashed by the stream." You appreciate the whither, I hope?
Freeman: Slips occur in the very best writers.
Moore: Good writers do not usually slip in every line, and of all, when they are attempting a purple passage.
Freeman: Do you think that he chose Fanny Robin's grave as suitable for fine writing?
Moore: Had there not been purple in his eye, he would have written: The pour of water from the gurgoyle washed away the grave-mound. A simple statement was all that was needed, and perhaps the very first among our literary instincts is the one that
