MEMOIRS OF MY DEAD LIFE
BY
GEORGE MOORE
CONTENTS
IV. THE END OF MARIE PELLEGRIN
APOLOGIA PRO SCRIPTIS MEIS
[The APOLOGIA which follows needs, perhaps, a word ofexplanation, not to clear up Mr. Moore's text--that is as delightful,as irrelevantly definite, as paradoxically clear as anything thispresent wearer of the Ermine of English Literature has everwritten--but to explain why it was written and why it is published.When the present publisher, who is hereinafter, in the words ofSchopenhauer, "flattened against the wall of the Wisdom of the East,"first read and signified his pride in being able to publish these"Memoirs," the passages now consigned to "the late Lord ----'slibrary" were not in the manuscript. On the arrival of the final copythey were discovered, and thereby hangs an amusing tale, consisting ofa series of letters which, in so far as they were written with acertain caustic, humorous Irish pen, have taken their high place amongthe "Curiosities of Literature." The upshot of the matter was that thepublisher, entangled in the "weeds" brought over by his Mayflowerancestors, found himself as against the author in the position ofMr. Coote as against Shakespeare; that is, the matter was sobeautifully written that he had not the heart to decline it, and yetin parts so--what shall we say?--so full of the "Wisdom of the East"that he did not dare to publish it in the West. Whereupon he adoptedthe policy of Mr. Henry Clay, which is, no doubt, always a mistake.And the author, bearing in mind the make-up of that race of Man calledpublishers, gave way on condition that this APOLOGIA shouldappear without change. Here it is, without so much as the alterationof an Ibsen comma, and if the Mayflower "weeds" mere instrumentalin calling it forth, then it is, after all, well that they grew.--THEPUBLISHER.]
Last month the post brought me two interesting letters, and the readerwill understand how interesting they were to me when I tell him thatone was from Mr. Sears, of the firm of Appleton, who not knowing mepersonally had written to Messrs. Heinemann to tell them that the firmhe represented could not publish the "Memoirs" unless two stories wereomitted; "The Lovers of Orelay," and "In the LuxembourgGardens,"--Messrs. Heinemann had forwarded the letter to me; my interest in theother letter was less direct, but the reader will understand that it wasnot less interesting when I tell that it came from the secretary of acertain ch