1891-07-28 to Mary Blake Moore

Autograph letter signed, National Library of Ireland, 475 words

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

8 Kings Bench Walk, Temple

Tuesday [28 July 1891]

My dear Mother

I send you by this post this week's Athenaeum. It gives me the front page and five columns. The honour is unexpected and I am afraid undeserved. You probably do not know that the first page in the Athenaeum is only given to writers in the very front rank.

Praise does not elate me but it is a pleasure, after having been made for years the target of every fool’s abuse, to find that the reaction has come. Should I have done well to I did well not to take the advice of every silly person? I had something to say and I said it regardless of the shrieking of the crowd, I have more to say and I shall say it regardless of the praise that may be given. The Athenaeum is, as you know, the first literary journal in the English language and the article on Impressions and Opinions will do me more good in the Athenaeum than if it had appeared in The Times. I was particularly touched by the last sentence, and it is only natural that I should be, for I have had to bear a great deal more than you think.

There is nothing to do now but to push the bolts of my door and bury myself in my work. And that is the difficulty. I have worked hard and am feeling lazy, and society is corrupting, insidious, and the temptation is sometimes intolerable. I have half a mind to fly from London and write my book about betting in Moore Hall.

Maurice I am most anxious to see. He wrote to me from India some few weeks ago. When will he return? There is no one like Maurice. Julian is I fear hopeless. I wonder how it is he does not care to go out to Africa and seek fortune. To go on dribbling as he does and at his age is more than sad, it is calamitous. Nina I should like to hear something about. I hear she is about to have another baby. Surely this is not true.

I saw Anna Murphy on Sunday. She asked me to lunch but I cannot stand the stupidity of her friends and did not go: but I went in after lunch when I thought they were all gone. I contrived however to stumble across one of the worst: Mr. Robinson, a terrible young man.

Goodbye my dear mother

Affectionately yours

George Moore.

PS I forgot to mention that the money in the funds turned out to be a mare’s nest and all I got was a bill of costs. Very provoking was it not?