At that time I had heard a good deal of Moore; I had read very few of
his novels; these I had found to be entertaining, realistic, and
decadent; and certainly founded on modern French fiction. He made little
or no impression on me on that occasion; he was Irish and amusing. Our
conversation was probably on Paris and France and French prose. He gave
me his address, King's Bench Walk, Inner Temple, and asked me to call on
him after my return to London.
I was born, "like a fiend hid in a cloud," cruel, nervous, excitable,
passionate, restless, never quite human, never quite normal and, from
the fact that I have never known what it was to have a home, as most
children know it, my life has been in many ways a wonderful, in certain
ways a tragic one: an existence, indeed, so inexplicable even to myself,
that I can not fathom it. If I have been a vagabond, and have never been
able to root myself in any one place in the world, it is because I have
no early memories of any one sky or soil. It has freed me from many
prejudices in giving me its own unresting kind of freedom; but it has
cut me off from whatever is stable, of long growth in the world.
When I came up to London, in 1889, I was fortunate enough to take one
room in a narrow street, named Fountain Court. In 1821 Blake left South
Molton Street for Fountain Court, where he remained for the rest of his
life. The side window looked down through an opening between the houses,
showing the river and the hills beyond; Blake worked at a table facing
the window. At that time I had only seen the Temple; so that when I
entered it for the first time in my life, to call on Moore, I was seized
by a sudden fascination which never left me. I questioned him as to the
chances I might have of finding rooms there; he wisely advised me to
look at the outside of the window of the barber's shop, where notices of
vacant flats were put up. Finally I saw: "Fountain Court: rooms to let."
I immediately made all the necessary inquiries; and found myself in
March, 1871, entire possessor of the top flat, which had a stone balcony
from which I looked down on a wide open court, with a stone fountain in
the middle. I lived there for ten years. My most intimate friends were,
first and foremost, Yeats, then Moore: all three of us being of Celtic
origin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account