←Menu of Letters 1893

Aet. 42, to a woman of letters and host of a notable salon. In his Preface for Lena Milman’s translation of Poor Folk (1894), George Moore described a good ending like that in Esther Waters: “to maintain a sensation in vibration to the last page is surely genius. The mere act of concluding often serves to break the spell; the least violence, the faintest exaggeration is enough; we must drop into a minor key if we would increase the effect, only by a skillful use of anticlimax can we attain those perfect climaxes — sensation of inextinguishable grief, the calm of resignation, the mute yearning of what life has not for giving. In such pauses all great stories end.”