that nearly all our talks were significant. Several times contemporary
names came up and I was compelled to notice for the first time that
really he was contemptuous of almost everyone, and had a sharp word to
say about many who were supposed to be his friends. One day we spoke of
Ricketts and Shannon; I was saying that had Ricketts lived in Paris he
would have had a great reputation: many of his designs I thought
extraordinary, and his intellect was peculiarly French--_mordant_ even.
Oscar did not like to hear praise of anyone.
"Do you know my word for them, Frank? I like it. I call them 'Temper and
Temperament.'"
Was his punishment making him a little spiteful or was it the temptation
of the witty phrase?
"What do you think of Arthur Symons?" I asked.
"Oh, Frank, I said of him long ago that he was a sad example of an
Egoist who had no Ego."
"And what of your compatriot, George Moore? He's popular enough," I
continued.
"Popular, Frank, as if that counted. George Moore has conducted his
whole education in public. He had written two or three books before he
found out there was such a thing as English grammar. He at once
announced his discovery and so won the admiration of the illiterate. A
few years later he discovered that there was something architectural in
style, that sentences had to be built up into a paragraph, and
paragraphs into chapters and so on. Naturally he cried this revelation,
too, from the housetops, and thus won the admiration of the journalists
who had been making rubble-heaps all their lives without knowing it. I'm
much afraid, Frank, in spite of all his efforts, he will die before he
reaches the level from which writers start. It's a pity because he has
certainly a little real talent. He differs from Symons in that he has an
Ego, but his Ego has five senses and no soul."
"What about Bernard Shaw?" I probed further, "after all he's going to
count."
"Yes, Frank, a man of real ability but with a bleak mind. Humorous
gleams as of wintry sunlight on a bare, harsh landscape. He has no
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