1899-04-22 to Ernst Heilborn

Autograph letter signed, National Library of Ireland, 614 words

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

92, Victoria Street, S.W.

[Saturday] April 22 [1899]

Dear Dr. Heilborn,

You have doubtless already received from Miss Anna Gerstmann the proof copy of the rewritten novel — Evelyn Innes. Miss Gerstmann wrote to me to say that [she] would send it to you. She is highly pleased with your article, as well as she might be, and hopes that you will add a few lines regarding the alterations in the text. It will make a charming preface for the book.

Your last letter interested me very much. You express yourself perfectly in English — the language is not the great difficulty — the besetting difficulty of the writer is to think, to think always, at eveiy moment. You have learnt to think, I can see that when you write English.

But about Morales [Novalis], tell me about him, is there an English translation? I know a Spanish musician of that name, and I remember vaguely that Maeterlinck wrote about a man of that name in The Treasure of the Lowly. I should like to read a mystical work. Is Morales translated?

Your suggestion for the end of Evelyn has occupied my thoughts from time to time. It is this, that Evelyn marries Owen Asher and that he, her friends, her amusements, even her child, if she should have one, remain dim and obscure to her, whereas the life in the convent is the one real thing in her life, the one thing that she feels — she is as it were a shadow among shadows…

That is what you mean, is it not? I have no fault to find, it is very true to life and it is probably what would happen. But  — there is a but, she achieves nothing, it seems a little flat, a little pointless. You will answer, "yes like life”?

I shall not settle anything. I shall go on and write the end that comes — perhaps it will be that end. Since I saw you I have thought out a plan for leaving the end in doubt — the reader does not know if she drowns herself in the pond as I told you or if she is the new singer who appears suddenly in Ulick Dean's opera at Naples is the true end. He is led however to believe neither is the true end — for Evelyn was seen on her way to Bayreuth; she did not sing there but merely heard one of the operas and departed suddenly. The last that is seen of her is on board a steamer, on leaving the canal, moving out into the — sea, on its way to the East moving towards the sunrise — There Evelyn is going, to the East, to seek the ancient wisdom of the world at its original sources and the book ends with: and the future adventures of Evelyn are unknown.

You remember the legend of Bran son of Feval p 306 Evelyn Innes. You will hardly be able to form an opinion from this very slight sketch but when you write again I shall be glad if you will let me know if you like these suggestions better than your definite ending.

If I possibly can manage it I’ll visit Berlin when I am in Germany this summer — it will be you and not Berlin I shall go to see. I fancy I shall like more than the last chapter of your novel — Do send it to me. I'll lend it to a friend who knows German very well, she'll tell me about it.

Very sincerely yours

George Moore