1887-12-02 to Jacques-Émile Blanche

Printed letter signed, Portraits of a Lifetime (1937), pages 292-293, 438 words

[Edited for paragraph breaks, capitalization, spelling and punctuation.]

Freshcombe Lodge, Beeding, Sussex

[Friday] December 2nd [1887]

My dear Blanche,

I did not write to you before to thank you for your drawing because I did not like to tell you that I could not make use of it. The title Confessions of a Young Man is suggestive enough but if I were to put a young woman on the cover it would announce exactly what I wish to conceal; I had hoped that you would have sent me some design in the style of that on Rossetti's poems. My confessions are purely literary.

Regarding your question as to whether I am expressing my own opinions or the opinions of an imaginary young man I reply that I am expressing my opinions everywhere except in one chapter entitled “Synthesis of the Nouvelle Athènes” and in that chapter I try to formulate the esprit of a place where I spent many instructive years.

I should like very much to see your exhibition of pictures, for you know with what interest I watch the development of your talent which I recognized and appreciated from the very first; but alas, I am tied to my ink bottle. My next novel will appear in a London daily paper and I have promised to let them have the first half by the middle of February, the second half I must finish by the first of April.

I do not know if I shall be able to do this, I hope so; if I do I shall go in for a long holiday, perhaps I shall go to Italy. If you could come with me how jolly it would be.

If you do the illustrations for Cruelle Enigme please send me the book, otherwise I may not see it. I hold Bourget in very light esteem indeed as a novelist, but his critical articles interest me.

I have read Zola's new book; I shall never read another by him — he does not address the scholarly instincts in readers and if a man does not do that I fail to see on what ground he claims my attention and consideration.

Rosny's novel in La Revue indépendante struck me as being exceedingly badly written. There is nothing decadent in Mallarmé. Rosny is really decadent, a litter of ancient elements in a state of decomposition.

Hoping you will come to England soon and that I shall have the pleasure of seeing you, believe me my dear Blanche

Yours as ever

GEORGE MOORE