Confessions of a Young Man

EBook of Confessions of a Young
Man, by George Moore

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Title: Confessions of a Young Man
Author: George Moore
Release Date: May 6, 2004 [EBook #12278]
Language: English with French
Character set encoding: UTF-8
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CONFESSIONS OF A YOUNG MAN ***

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CONFESSIONS OF A...YOUNG MAN

CONFESSIONS OF A YOUNG MAN

By GEORGE MOORE. 1886.
Edited and Annotated by GEORGE MOORE, 1904,

Clifford's Inn--1904

À JACQUES BLANCHE.
L'âme de l'ancien Égyptien s'éveillait en moi quand mourut ma
jeunesse, et j'étais inspiré de conserver mon passé, son esprit et
sa forme, dans l'art.
Alors trempant le pinceau dans ma mémoire, j'ai peint ses joues pour
qu'elles prissent l'exacte ressemblance de la vie, et j'ai enveloppé le
mort dans les plus fins linceuls. Rhamenès le second n'a pas reçu
des soins plus pieux! Que ce livre soit aussi durable que sa pyramide!
Votre nom, cher ami, je voudrais l'inscrire ici comme épitaphe, car
vous êtes mon plus jeune et mon plus cher ami; et il se trouve en vous
tout ce qui est gracieux et subtil dans ces mornes années qui
s'égouttent dans le vase du vingtième siècle.
G.M.

PREFACE TO A NEW EDITION OF "CONFESSIONS OF A
YOUNG MAN"

I
Dear little book, what shall I say about thee? Belated offspring of mine,
out of print for twenty years, what shall I say in praise of thee? For
twenty years I have only seen thee in French, and in this English text
thou comest to me like an old love, at once a surprise and a recollection.

Dear little book, I would say nothing about thee if I could help it, but a
publisher pleads, and "No" is a churlish word. So for him I will say that
I like thy prattle; that while travelling in a railway carriage on my way
to the country of "Esther Waters," I passed my station by, and had to
hire a carriage and drive across the downs.
Like a learned Abbé I delighted in the confessions of this young man,
a naïf young man, a little vicious in his naïveté, who says that his
soul must have been dipped in Lethe so deeply that he came into the
world without remembrance of previous existence. He can find no other
explanation for the fact that the world always seems to him more new,
more wonderful than it did to anyone he ever met on his faring; every
wayside acquaintance seemed old to this amazing young man, and
himself seemed to himself the only young thing in the world. Am I
imitating the style of these early writings? A man of letters who would
parody his early style is no better than the ancient light-o'-love who
wears a wig and reddens her cheeks. I must turn to the book to see how
far this is true. The first thing I catch sight of is some French, an
astonishing dedication written in the form of an epitaph, an epitaph
upon myself, for it appears that part of me was dead even when I wrote
"Confessions of a Young Man." The youngest have a past, and this
epitaph dedication, printed in capital letters, informs me that I have
embalmed my past, that I have wrapped the dead in the finest
winding-sheet. It would seem I am a little more difficult to please
to-day, for I perceived in the railway train a certain coarseness in its
tissue, and here and there a tangled thread. I would have wished for
more care, for un peu plus de toilette. There is something pathetic in
the loving regard of the middle-aged man for the young man's coat (I
will not say winding-sheet, that is a morbidity from which the
middle-aged shrink). I would set his coat collar straighter, I would
sweep some specks from it. But can I do aught for this youth, does he
need my supervision? He was himself, that was his genius; and I sit at
gaze. My melancholy is like her's--the ancient light-o'-love of whom I
spoke just now, when she sits by the fire in the dusk, a miniature of her
past self in her hand.

II
This edition has not been printed from old plates, no chicanery of that
kind: it has been printed from new type, and it was brought about by
Walter Pater's evocative letter. (It wasn't, but