1900-02-23 to Maurice Moore

Autograph letter signed, National Library of Ireland, 492 words

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

SHELBOURNE HOTEL, DUBLIN

[Friday, 23 February 1900]

My dear Maurice,

I cannot write to you about the war and it is hard to write to you without speaking of it. I live in a sort of nightmare when I think of it, so I strive to put it behind me and I pass whole days without reading a paper. I look at the placards furtively and hurry by. The Lucans on the contrary see every paper and receive half a dozen telegrams a day.

It will be a great joy for me to see you again — this, truly, is all I have to say on the subject of the war.

If you have time to write an article and will send it to me I will dispose of it — I can dispose of it more satisfactorily than Augustus, I think. The North American Review offered 30£ but — well, that is an old tale now. I daresay the North American would give 30 or forty for an article on the war — the editor said he would.

I send you some papers about my play and I send you the play itself. Yesterday there was the lunch and I made a long speech which was reported practically word for word. It will interest you for it contains many ideas which I learnt from you and I think it will do good.

The last sentences caused a good deal of laughter. I knew they would and yet I meant them seriously. Evelyn will be astonished when she reads them this morning. I hope she will consent to the arrangement.

But my dear brother, the brother of my instinctive election, it is very painful for me to write to you — the circumstances of the war are so painful that I cannot overcome my reluctance unless I'm helped by some fact, like the fact of the play and the speech or the necessity of writing to you about an article. You will not think me neglectful for you know me well. If I were to allow my mind to ponder on the war as others allow their minds to ponder I would soon go off my head. We are not all constituted to feel in the same way, and when I tell people that I never look at the papers no one understands.

I can write no more.

Always affectionately yours

George Moore

On reading over this letter I see it is not the right kind of letter to write. I ought to have written a cheerful gossippy letter. But we do not do what we like. Last night I took Annina Kenny to the play and she seemed to me to be a very clever girl and a pretty girl, a most intelligent girl, capable of understanding anything. We talked a great deal about you.