Aet. 48, to an Irish poet and playwright concerning their three-act play Diarmuid and Grania. This letter replies to an undated letter from W. B. Yeats:
My dear Moore: You say both should make concessions. I think so too, but so far I have made them. I have recognized that you have a knowledge of the stage, a power of construction, a power of inventing a dramatic climax far beyond me, and I have given way again and again. I have continually given up motives and ideas that I preferred to yours, because I admitted your authority to be greater than mine. On the question of style however I will make no concessions. Here you need give way to me. Remember that our original compact was that the final words were to be mine. I would never have begun the play at all, but for this compact. It is no use going on with the work at all if we are not clear on this point. I send you what seems to me a sufficient version of Act 1. I will listen to any suggestions you make, or consider any emendations of language as I have always done, but the final version must be in my words or in such words of yours as I may accept. Remember that this is the original compact. If I hear that you have accepted this Act 1,1 will go on to Act 2. It will be a pity if we fall out over a few phrases after so much planned work together.
There is omy one alternative and this is the alternative I offered you weeks ago. I will accept any form of words of yours that Symons approves of. I have perfect trust in his judgement and so should you as you have got him to revise a novel. This was no part of our compact but it seems to me reasonable.
The Letters of W. B. Yeats, ed. Allan Wade (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1954), pages 347-348. From an unfinished draft in the possession of Mrs. W. B. Yeats at the time of publication.
Carden Tyrrell was a character in The Heather Field, a play by Edward Martyn that was dedicated to George Moore, W. B. Yeats, and Arthur Symons when published in 1899. George edited Martyn’s text and wrote the Introduction.
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