, it would be as little likely to be presented in
Ireland as "The Tinker's Wedding." Mr. Moore, for all that he was born a
Catholic, would not hesitate any more than did the son of the Protestant
minister to put a priest into a realistic modern play, and that, of
course, would be a mild audacity for Mr. Moore now that he has published
the scenario of "The Apostle" (1911). His Paul, in "The Apostle," a
"thick-set man, of rugged appearance, hairy in the face and with a
belly," is wonderfully alive, and his Jesus is a distinct and realizable
personality, if not the Jesus of Christian dream. It is a curious
illustration of Mr. Moore's almost disciple-like attitude toward Mr.
G.W. Russell that he should make his Christ talk like "A.E." It seemed
to me, as I read the words that Mr. Moore puts first on the lips of
Jesus, that they were phrases that I had heard on the lips of Mr.
Russell. They are of the very quality of his speech and writing: "How
beautiful is the evening light as it dies, revealing every crest; the
outline of the hills is evident now, evident as the will of God." And
now each time, as I re-read them, they sound in my ears to the
remembered rhythm of Mr. Russell's voice. Should Mr. Moore ever evolve a
play from this scenario, and the play be played--and why should it not,
now that the way is so plainly blazed by the score and more of miracle
plays of the past decade?--it will have to be chanted as "A.E." chants
his verse, as one would wish mass to be chanted.

Only a year ago Mr. Moore made his last adventure of the theatre. With
the help of Mr. Lennox Robinson he dramatized "Esther Waters," but later
he threw out the latter's work, feeling, no doubt, about it as Mr.
Martyn felt about Mr. Moore's rewriting of his "A Tale of a Town"; and
when it was put on, in the early winter of 1911-12 by the Stage Society,
"Esther Waters" the play was like "Esther Waters" the novel, solely the
work of Mr. Moore. The critics seem agreed that it was long drawn out
and undramatic, but that it was well written and well acted. I suppose
that the preoccupation with "Esther Waters" that this dramatization
reveals is because "Esther Waters" was written in that period of his
life when Mr. Moore was most himself. After ten years in London he had
escaped considerably from the French influence of his young manhood, and
his genius had not been warped out of its true plane, as he would
doubtless now say, by Irish mists. Mr. Moore must have