GEORGE MOORE
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his wife, and I said: Archer is right; the two men are very like each other.
Freeman: The subject of your charge is that Mr Hardy is often melodramatic; but I don't think anybody would deny that he does, on occasions, avail himself of exaggeration, of emphasis. His admirers, and I know one or two, would answer you that Mr Hardy was only following in the footsteps of Shakespeare, and they would speak of the three witches in Macbeth, of the two murderers interrupted by the comic porter, of Banquo's ghost, and many other melodramatic scenes. Nor would their inquiry be limited to Macbeth. Hamlet rises frequently into melodrama, or, as you would put it, lapses frequently into melodrama. It seems to me that you are bringing into this criticism a great deal of your own temperament. You don't like melodrama, and you are right not to like it, for whenever you get an effect it is by understatement rather than by overstatement; but that is not a reason why you should condemn a method which is employed by both Mr Hardy and Shakespeare.
Moore: The charge is often brought against the critic that his criticism is no more than a reflection of his own temperament. How else could it be, since all he sees, hears, feels, and knows, is but a reflection of his temperament? We have no exact knowledge of anything. But I think my best answer to your defence of melodrama is that there is melodrama that rises into the empyrean, and melodrama unredeemed by poetry. The first walks with divine gait, in silken raiment and with stars in her hair, whilst the other proceeds with shambling gait from ale-house to ale-house, and the deeds that are done appeal to the eye and ear rather than to the mind. Shakespeare appeals to all the senses, it is true, but he never fails to appeal to the mind. Macbeth's deeds and Hamlet's are transported into art, and are therefore only understood by the few, though they may be undoubtedly relished by the many.
Freeman: You remind me of Don Quixote charging the windmills, mills that only exist in his imagination. Nobody compares Tess and Jude the Obscure with Hamlet or Macbeth.
Moore: Oh, yes, they do! Several articles have appeared in which analogies are discovered between Jude the Obscure and Prometheus Bound, and I would not advise any critic who valued the world's opinions to challenge these appreciations.
