The Culture Hero in Dublin Myths

The Leader (Dublin), 20 July 1901, pages 329-331, 3,943 words

Ireland is again convulsed. Ireland wants to revive her language, and the Commissioners of Intermediate Education, acting in the interests or in what they believe to be the interest of the English Government, have arranged that Irish shall occupy a less favourable position under the new than under the old rules. As a protest against these new rules a great meeting was held in the Rotunda. Mr. Leamy came over from London to speak on behalf of the Irish Parliamentary Party. The Lord Mayor was in the chair, and many distinguished clergymen spoke in favour of bi-lingual education. The first result of this meeting was the publication of the news that Sir Malcolm Inglis is not in sympathy with the language revival movement. Sir Malcolm Inglis is a Scotchman, who like many another Scotchman has come to Ireland with the intention of making his fortune. I hear that he has succeeded in making some money, and that he is a coal merchant. It is not at once clear why a Scotch coal merchant should be selected to formulate an educational system for Ireland, and it even seems like an impertinence that a coal merchant, Scotch or otherwise, should speak on a subject so entirely beyond the habitual ranging of his mind. Sir Malcolm Inglis who has probably derived his education from the newspapers, has no views on this learned subject other than the Irish Times' worn platitude, that it is cruel that little children should be taught a language that can be of no earthly use to them in Ireland or any other part of the world. I would suggest to Sir Malcolm Inglis that this criticism is somewhat perfunctory, somewhat slight, somewhat casual. Perhaps he is not aware that the value of a language in the moral development of people is a question in which Europe is interested, and I would beg Sir Malcolm Inglis who has so kindly consented to interest himself in Irish affairs, to read the literature that has been written on this subject. He will put the views of men of letters aside contemptuously, but I do not think he will venture to speak contemptuously of the views of the Duke of Argyle.

The grave pronouncement of the Scotch coal merchant and his still obscurer colleague regarding the value of the Irish language has been followed by the resignation of the Archbishop from the Board. Interviews with hill Grace have appeared in the press, and his Grace has sent letters hinting at the reasons that compelled his resignation. He has complained of the coal merchant’s indiscretions, and he has alluded to various illicit circulars. I do not think I am going too far in saying that his Grace has intimated that the Board of Education is composed of such discordant and discrepant elements that it would be useless for him to remain upon it any longer. The offices of coal merchant and schoolmaster certainly seem discordant and discrepant, and Sir Malcolm Inglis' trite little pronouncements regarding the value of the small languages do not tend to convince us of the compatibility of these offices. But at the meeting in the Rotunda Dr. Douglas Hyde spoke only of Dr. Mahaffy, whom he seemed to look upon as the origin and prime mover of the mischief. I am a new arrival in Dublin, and am imperfectly acquainted with the many various intrigues of the town, and should hesitate to express an opinion upon any civic matter, but Dr. Mahaffy is a character as well known in London as the most celebrated creations of fiction, as Handy Andy, Mickey Free, or any other stage Irishman in the dramas of Boucicault. London people go to the theatre in order to digest their dinners, and they invite Dr. Mahaffy, whose pleasant stories at the expense of his country begin the process which the theatre completes.

Dr. Mahaffy has only quite lately been put on the Board of Education. He was appointed by His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant, whose well-known sense of humour saw in him a fit successor to the late Dr. Fitzgerald, about whom nothing is known except that he once said that the Irish were naked savages until the coming of Cromwell. Presumably Dr. Fitzgerald lived in Dublin. I say presumably, for presumptions are vain in a country where coal merchants are considered authorities in education. But let us suppose that Dr. Fitzgerald lived in Dublin, let us suppose that he wandered one day into the Museum, and let us suppose that he saw the Tara brooch, it is difficult to suppose that he could have been in the Museum without seeing it, the policeman on duty is supposed to draw visitors` attention to it, and though the policeman on duty, that day, may not have known that the Tara brooch is comparable to the finest work of the Italian Renaissance, it is not unfair to suppose that Dr. Fitzgerald must have met someone in the course of his life to inform him of this well-known fact. Even in Trinity there must be someone who is aware that in artistic and literary circles the Tara brooch and the Cross of Cong are held as proof that a higher degree of civilization existed in Ireland before the Norman invasion than that which exists in England in the present day. Even when education is dispensed by coal merchants most men know of the beauty of the Tara brooch and the Cross of Cong and the Book of Kells. But Dr. Fitzgerald retained his extraordinary ignorance to the end. (It is wonderful how some men manage to evade the policeman.) Or, may be, ignorance of art is required by the Castle authorities of their commissioners, and this last presumption is supported by the fact that Dr. Mahaffy's erudite ignorance has been chosen to fill the place of Dr. Fitzgerald's simple obtuseness. I opened a book of Dr. Mahaffy's the other day, and this was one of the first sentences that caught my eye, "It is strange that men like Raphael and Michael Angelo did not appreciate the difference which we think so striking between a few genuine pieces of old Greek work and the fuller and more ornate work of a latter epoch." He who thinks that he can appreciate differences in Greek sculpture which escaped the perception of the greatest of all sculptors, the architect of Saint Peter's, and the author of the sonnets, is incapable of appreciating art, Greek, Roman or Irish.

Trinity College is more a Museum where are stored all kinds of educated eccentricities than a seat of learning; and at undetermined intervals these educated specimens wake up in their bottles and babble. Dr. Atkinson babbled one day about folklore, which he said was abominable, and an ancient Irish book, which he said contained indecencies that would cause his Excellency to blush. The most celebrated scholars have publicly asked him to name the book, and as he has refused to do so we must conclude — Had not this sentence better be left unfinished? At the meeting in the Rotunda, a letter by Dr. Traill on the subject of the language movement was read. I am always sorry that anyone does not think well of the Irish language, but I am not deeply moved when I am told in ungrammatical English that Irish is a language incapable of literary expression, and were it not for his Excellency's blushes I should wish him to birch his Commissioner for writing "that the sooner Irishmen learn to talk nothing else but English the better." But Dr. Atkinson and Dr. Traill are the accidental eccentricities of a decadent university, whose ideal is to reflect some of the culture of Germany and France. They are things of the moment, but Dr. Mahaffy is for all time, and in thinking of him I forget the transient Mahaffy in the eternal type which floats on through generations. Mahaffy is at once a passing and an eternal moment, and this view of the professor must not be dismissed as the fancy of a. man of letters. If he were not an immortal he would not have been selected as a hero; many legends have collected about him; he is already a. legend. The hero's death counts for little in the making of a legend — the essential is that the tale should be moulded by popular imagination, and for many years Dublin has been making the Mahaffy legend. I am but the first of the Dublin folklorists, a humble collector and interpreter of popular tales, and I would wish that this task had been undertaken by one more qualified than I, by one who has drunk the gossip of Dublin as daily food from childhood; my work must necessarily appear imperfect and fragmentary, but it may encourage others to continue it. There is a story — I should like to think it not true; I would prefer it as a piece of popular imagination — that after telling how he had once been flogged at school Dr. Mahaffy added, "and I was flogged for telling the truth." "That flogging seems to have been very effectual, Mahaffy!" was Dr. Salmon's witty answer. (Another version gives the Provost’s comment “you must admit, Mahaffy, that cure was very efficacious.”)

The value of this story is that it makes one feel that the man about whom such a story is told is never sure whether he is speaking truth or falsehood; it makes one feel that when Dr. Mahaffy assured the Commissioners that all Irish literature was either indecent, silly, or religious, and that ninety per cent. of Irish parents desired its abolition, he remembered that this statement would clear him of any suspicion of sympathy or interest in his own country; he did not make this statement because he thought it would help him to the Provostship, the human soul is more complex than that; he made this statement, because he is a man without deep convictions, a man to whom all things, or nearly all things, are equally true. When he writes of Lady Londonderry's conversation as unusually brilliant and acknowledges the assistance she has been to him in the composition of one of his books, and when he says that Irish literature is indecent, silly, or religious, he speaks not from conviction, but out of his histrionic instincts. He knows very little of Irish literature, and that little he dislikes; he knows very little of "smart society," and that little he adores, and when he praises one and condemns the other he is speaking his truth, the thin, ineffectual truth of the comedian. When he tells Dr. Salmon it is time to go to speak to so-and-so, and so-and-so, when, in a word, he understudies the Provostship in public, he is not moved by the desire of making everyone understand that Dr. Salmon is old and feeble, and that the proper thing for him to do is to resign; he understudies the Provostship in public because he is a born comedian, capable of enjoying in mimetics, the fruit that he may never enjoy under his tooth.

According to the legends Lord Randolph said when he was in Dublin, to someone who offered to help him to find his top coat: "Never mind, my little dog, Mahaffy, has it in his mouth, and he will bring it to me presently." Now, it is impossible that Lord.Randolph could have ever said this. This is clearly a folk tale, but with what admirable directness the popular imagination expresses itself. I have not been in Dublin long enough to acquire any considerable knowledge of these legends; only the most celebrated are known to me. Just as Standish O'Grady in his critical and philosophical history of Ireland has found that the ancient legends fall into great cycles so the Mahaffy legends fall into cycles which may be named by the distinguished men whose acquaintance Dr. Mahaffy has succeeded in making. For example, there is the King of Greece cycle, of which I need only give one specimen, as this cycle is not one of the most important. On the occasion of the late Queen's visit to Ireland it is said that Dr. Mahaffy pressed his conversation upon her Majesty. "Your Majesty," he said, "I have the pleasure of your nephew's acquaintance." The late Queen turned slightly in her chair, and her look froze the Professor. "Who is that person," she asked aloud, and Dr. Mahaffy retired expounding to his shrinking friends that his friend the King of Greece was the only Royalty in Europe.capable of appreciating class distinctions. This legend has puzzled the folklorists, and it has been variously interpreted, but its meaning has been made clear by a passage in the very latest wrltings of our hero. In an article entitled the "Romanization of Ireland" he explains with pride that his ancestors were Squireens. The Squireen has hitherto been considered in Ireland among the meanest of its inhabitants; the Squireen is generally a shopkeeper in the provincial town who, by the practice of gombeen, has amassed enough money to enable him to become a land-grabber, and this claim of kinship with the landed gentry will be dwelt upon by some future poet or dramatist, and her late Majesty's lack of appreciation of the Squireen will no doubt be indulgently deplored.

A character like Dr. Mahaffy is a constant revelation. In him nothing is accidental, his slightest acts can be traced back to the original principle of his nature. It is said that German is placed above French in the Intermediate Examinations, and that it was Dr. Mahaffy who secured this important concession to the claims of the German language. Hugo wrote in French, Goethe in German, and it would be difficult for any of us to say which is the greater poet. We have instinctive preferences, Dr. Mahaffy has none, so it seems true to him to say that German literature is greater than French, and I do not believe that he is directly influenced by the fact that if he could persuade the Commissioners to give more marks for German than for French he might speak one day of his friend the Emperor of Germany.

It is in this way that men drift to the side in public affairs which is best for their private interests, they make no conscious sacrifice of principle, the placehunter sells his country with the firm conviction that he benefits his country in benefiting himself. The most successful embodiment of this conception of duty is unquestionably Dr. Mahaffy. I once heard Goncourt say that he had never known anyone who looked like Don Quixote who had not in his soul some of the characteristics of the chivalrous knight. Art set a soul made wholly of chivalry and honour in the great gaunt body we know so well; and Nature has chosen a large bland rosy-cheeked man as a setting for a soul so exquisitely eclectic that it would never be able to decide which was the greater poet, Goethe or Hugo, if France were not a Republic and Germany an Empire. It is always interesting and instructive to trace the subtle correspondences which doubtless exist between the soul and body, and if I dwell upon the Professor's personal appearance it is because I am minded to show that Nature sometimes runs art very closely. I remember a phrase I used in writing of Lord Leighton — “a man," I said, "of somewhat excessive appearance." Now, though there is no likeness between Lord Leighton and Professor Mahaffy the phrase seems to be as applicable to one as to the other. Just as we used to see Lord Leighton in the first glance, we see the professor; like Lord Leighton, he is always on the stage, and he is as completely himself as an actor could paint and dress him. He is a man in full health, of large size, with rosy cheeks, and fair faded hair spread thinly over a heavy round crown. He is fashionably dressod in a long grey frock-coat, he is prosperous and affable, he wears tightly fitting gloves, and almost hidden under the chin there is a small cravat made of some light material, and this cravat hints at orders. Seeing him we remember many French comedies and we imagine him playing a part in a comedy in which there is a Professor who talks to ladies of Greek Art and the Italian Renaissance, and who is listened to with avidity by ladies in gowns of watered-silk amid a profusion of Louis XV. furniture. One smiles, on account of the extraordinary expression the Professor's soul finds in his flesh, and on account of the ludicrous comparison which rises up in the mind, for although the Professor is very like himself, he is also like something he is not. He reminds one of a nurse, but whether on account of his affability or his rosy cheeks, whether on account of his manner of speaking or the character of his writings I cannot say; he also reminds me of a distinguished butler, and the large blandness of the Professor in addressing the meeting — it was at the meeting that I saw the Professor — encourage the idea of the servant; there is just that mixture of kindness and shrewdness in the Professor's shallow eyes that we take note of in the eyes of a particular type of family servant. At the particular meeting at which I saw him he was a little arrogant. The subject upon which he had come to speak was music, and he began by saying there was one subject on which he knew more than the chairman (the chairman was only a law lord). "It is probably the only subject on which my learning is greater than his." I think these were the Professor's exact words, but I could not help feeling that whatever the subject of the discussion might happen to be he would know more about it than the chairman unless the chairman was a very exalted person, with an escutcheon dating back as far as the 18th century. Alter the meeting he became more like himself than ever, he seemed to become a symbol of his writings, he became "the Art of Babble." I watched him for a long time while talking to a Countess whose conversation is notoriously insipid, but Dr. Mahaffy's enjoyment was so obvious that a whisper went round the room. A title astonishes him as it astonishes a valet.

I am convinced that he has been wasted in a university. Nature did not mean him for a dusty book-worm: Nature meant him for the stage. On the stage he would have given an individuality even to the stage Irishman; in the parts of valets or Squireens, and in certain parts which are known as travesty, he would have secured a permanent fame. The native wit of the Squireen, and the wit of the original MacGafferty, would have transpired — the name must surely have been MacGafferty. Great births are heralded by portents and dreams, and I am sure that the great grandfather or grandfather awoke one night babbling "Mahaffy, Mahaffy"; and obeying the mysterious suggestion the name was changed to Ma-haffy, "Ma-haffy, a name to resound for ages!" The mere sound of the name provokes a smile; compared as a name for this type of character Pecksniff is crude and theatrical, L'Illustre Gaudissart is flamboyant. Nature is greater than art; and so the name is fitly symbolical for one who discovered genius in the conversation of Lady Londonderry, and for one who is confident in his power to distinguish differences in Greek Art which escaped the less perfect appreciation of Michael Angelo. We like our hero for his folly, for his nonsense about Greek Art. There is no jarring or discrepant note in the Mahaffy legend. What should a professor of Greek with a taste for Countesses write but the "Art of Conversation "and "Studies in Greek Literature "? But perhaps I exaggerated when I said all was harmonious and in strict keeping with the central conception in the Mahaffy legend. There is one thing in it that will need modification, and that is his own writings. The great Gaelic writers, dramatists, and novelists of the future who will give literary resonance to the character as it transpires in the mass of folklore, the outlines of which I have indicated, will invent new writings for our hero just as Balzac invented articles, sonnets, and lyrics for Lucien in Les Illusions Perdues. They will probably think that the witlessness of the Professor's writings oversteps the modesty of art. If a copy of the Art of Conversation be discovered some hundred years hence I can imagine some extraordinary aesthetician and folklorist saying as he perused it: this is probably the writing of a Squireen who has been taught to punctuate in a university. The Gaelic poet will find nothing in it suitable for his purpose — he will turn the leaves in despair, reading that though Dr. Mahaffy experienced a certain lack of refinement in speaking to his inferiors he would not depreciate conversation with inferiors, for in their respective "spheres" each can learn something from the other — the Squireen can learn from the gamekeeper — (the Squireen's gamekeeper must be a very forlorn-looking person) — but let that pass. The Gaelic poet will remember that a writer is not justified in introducing a thing into art because that thing exists in nature, and the task of supplying the Professor with a "convincing literature" will not be an easy one. The original writings are not 'convincing'; they will convince no one except the Marchioness and a busy Viceroy. But in the Greek studies the names of Phideas and Michael Angelo occur on nearly every page, and to the middle intelligence it always seems distinguished to write about Greece. The Viceroy is put at his ease at once — Phideas! "A la bonheur" he will say, for Viceroys know French, "this will not interfere with contemporary politics." And the style, though unsuited to Phideas, is suited to the Viceroy — the Professor's style may be described as the spring cart style. We jump in and away we go bowling along the broad road of cosmopolitan provincialism. The way is through Greece, and the Squireen points out the different sights and objects of interest with his whip. Now and again he reins up his jaunty steed — in speaking of Dr. Mahaffy one must not be afraid of repeating the word jaunty — and then he ponders "that it used to be a very constant problem to fill the gaps (Dr. Mahaffy is speaking here of the gaps in Greek literature) and learned men were ready to assume what I hold to be impossible... we are now in a position to modify considerably these cruder theories, etc." Such "literature" should secure his election. The Marchioness has received a copy of "The Art of Conversation" and the Viceroy has received "Greek Studies" or "Travels in Greece," I have forgotten the title; diplomacy and society are satisfied, and who is to be the next Provost matters little. But the Boards of National and Intermediate Education will have to be more seriously considered, and his Excellency will now have to decide whether liars, illiterates, tuft hunters, and coal merchants are the proper people to dispense the education of the country.

P.S. — Since writing the above the Commissioners have begun to accuse each other of dishonourable actions.

GEORGE MOORE