passes except Shakespeare and the Bible," George Moore should stay for a long while one of the great characters of English fiction: and in creating him, Mr. Moore has rendered everybody a considerable service at the price of condemning himself to eternal oblivion. For these egotists who write perpetually about themselves are under no bond, and under no temptation whatever, to write the truth. So do we come to the reservation which I said just now I thought not unimportant: it is that in pretending to commemorate himself the self-respecting artist, who is also an egoist, substitutes an edited and a considerably embellished effigy. He immortalizes, in fine, somebody else. And it is indeed to-day a fairly open secret that Mr. Moore in very little resembles the George Moore of the confessional romances. All persons who have known Mr. Moore in the flesh seem here unanimous: and in particular do those who have known in the flesh this historian of his own so many fleshly loves acclaim in him a beguiling tendency to rival the eremite St. Anthony in continence and imagination. "Some men kiss and do not tell,"--thus Lady Gregory has phrased it, with perfection:--"George Moore does not kiss; but he tells." Yet the point is that he "tells" very charmingly; and that therefore, beyond any possible doubt, posterity will rejoicingly accept George Moore, and, with admirable good sense, forget all about Mr. Moore. So Mr. Moore has not hired perpetuity for himself, but has prolonged the existence of quite another person, through, no doubt, actual philanthropy.... Nor can I think of any conceivable reason why any author, whether he be called Moore or Thackeray or Casanova,--and no matter what be his notorious repute as an egoist where other writers have with lower cunning concealed their similarity to him,--should be at pains to immortalize himself. In fact, an egoist thinks too much of himself ever to let the truth get out. And no one who has encountered and conversed with authors, whether of marked or moderate ability, can fail to note what superior persons and how much more desirable associates they are in their books.... Nor, of course, does that alter the truth I voiced just now: your book, if it is to count, must express your personality: but most assuredly not all of it naked. Rather, should your book suggest what you would like to make of that personality when shaved, and bathed, and becomingly clothed, and judiciously inspirited with alcohol, before going out to be, to the reach of one's ability, agreeable company.