1886-08-16 to Théodore Duret

Autograph letter signed, New York Public Library, 428 words

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

The Green, Southwick

[Monday, 16 August 1886]

My dear Duret

I was very glad indeed to hear from you. It was a great relief to hear that you liked A Drama in Muslin. I wish you had said if you liked it better or not so well as A Mummers Wife.

Yes, I admit I side with Alice's unbelief in the latter part of the book, but I cannot for a moment agree that in doing so I am overstepping the limits of the Balzac formula.

Balzac was a prose Shakespeare — he did everything — he sided with his characters, he commented on love, time, life and death — he made his characters write letters that they couldn't write, he made them speak as they couldn't speak; sometimes you find him reporting conversations word for word, sometimes you find him cataloguing the furniture, sometimes he gives way to a magnificent lyrical outburst — Balzac was everything, he was as contradictory and as full of unexpected impulses as life itself —

Now Flaubert never gave way and dashed aside the pieces on his chess board. He was a close observer, he was a student, he was a philosopher and above all this he was a stylist.

I cannot for a moment consent to the coupling of the two names. Flaubert was par excellence the impersonal novelist, Balzac was par excellence the personal novelist.

I wrote to Charpentier to ask him if he will give me 1000 francs for my Figaro articles with six more added so as to have matter for a book. If Charpentier is with you, make him answer my letter at once — I have had one or two offers but of course I would sooner the book go to Charpentier than to a stranger. Zola writes "quant à vos articles du Figaro, ils me plaisent infiniment et je crois qu'ils ont un vif succès" — Is 1000 francs too much to ask for the book? If Charpentier won't give so much, tell him to make me an offer.

I hope you are getting on with the history and that I shall have the pleasure of reading it next year. How jolly you must be down in the South amid the vines. I am very comfortable here [in] a little lodging in an English village — Such a funny little place. I shall do a book about it.

With kind regards to the Charpentiers

Believe me yours as ever

George Moore