ysticism--he or rather his name. He is profoundly absorbed even
in views he no longer holds, and he expects us to be. And he intrudes
the capital "I" even where it need not be intruded--even where it
weakens the force of a plain statement. Where another man would say,
"It is a fine day," Mr. Moore says, "Seen through my temperament, the
day appeared fine." Where another man would say "Milton has obviously a
fine style," Mr. Moore would say, "As a stylist Milton had always
impressed me." The Nemesis of this self-centred spirit is that of being
totally ineffectual. Mr. Moore has started many interesting crusades,
but he has abandoned them before his disciples could begin. Even when
he is on the side of the truth he is as fickle as the children of
falsehood. Even when he has found reality he cannot find rest. One
Irish quality he has which no Irishman was ever without--pugnacity; and
that is certainly a great virtue, especially in the present age. But he
has not the tenacity of conviction which goes with the fighting spirit
in a man like Bernard Shaw. His weakness of introspection and
selfishness in all their glory cannot prevent him fighting; but they
will always prevent him winning.

X. On Sandals and Simplicity

The great misfortune of the modern English is not at all that they are
more boastful than other people (they are not); it is that they are
boastful about those particular things which nobody can boast of
without losing them. A Frenchman can be proud of being bold and
logical, and still remain bold and logical. A German can be proud of
being reflective and orderly, and still remain reflective and orderly.
But an Englishman cannot be proud of being simple and direct, and still
remain simple and direct. In the matter of these strange virtues, to
know them is to kill them. A man may be conscious of being heroic or
conscious of being divine, but he cannot (in spite of all the
Anglo-Saxon poets) be conscious of being unconscious.

Now, I do not think that it can be honestly denied that some portion of
this impossibility attaches to a class very different in their own
opinion, at least, to the school of Anglo-Saxonism. I mean that school
of the simple life, commonly associated with Tolstoy. If a perpetual
talk about one's own robustness leads to being less robust, it is even
more true that a perpetual talking about one's own simplicity leads to
being less simple. One great complaint, I think, must stand agai