[^DOWSON, ERNEST. THE LETTERS OF ERNEST DOWSON. CASSELL AND COMPANY LIMITED. ED. FLOWER, DESMOND AND MAAS, HENRY. LONDON, 1967. PP. 111 - 159^]

[} [\70. To Arthur Moore\] }] [\[c. 21 October 1889]\] Woodford (\Cher Vieux\) (\Eheu!\) (\Eheu!\) Let me send you a line before I fall into a little pink slumber. Actually I am going very shortly (about 9.30 I guess) to sleep in my own bed. O God - but Tweedy of Barts is an aI almond poor sight, I don't think.... Enough. We really must meet soon. Our meeting on Satdy night was very sad. It seemeth to me on the whole that our glass is well nigh run. Will you come down here from Satdy to Monday - next or the next after as may suit you best? It will delight me - need I say - & possibly prolong my life - as otherwise I shall be reduced to Gt Russell St with its many exhausting - tho' I admit agreeable accompaniments. Come, if you can. We have arrears of conversation & literary projection to make up. Then there's the Haymarket. By the bye - I had a delightful glimpse of Mignon this afternoon from Plarrs window. She was disporting herself in a superb way in Gt Russell St - hatless & in a "pinny" with a diminutive sister (?) in her arms, sporting with the (\bambina\) of an Italian organ woman. We threw pennies & chocolate down to the (\bambina\) & to our great delight Minnie Terry collected them & handed them on. It was a delightful picture & restored my equilibrium vastly. (\Allons donc\) - I wish these TweedlecumSamuelses would aroint them & allow us to possess our souls in peace. Write to me O Alphonse the Great & Good: tell me of the state of thy liver & thy soul. Also - where - oh where is Ludovicus to go to? Tomorrow I go with one Walton to "Caste". We dine at Pinolis: - if you feel inclined to join us - ? I am reading Le Rouge et Le Noir - (Stendhall) - several Balzacs & a Turg‚nev, - writing nothing - not even roundels. I am very slack, very sleepy - (last night to bed 5. AM up 8.30 AM - Satdy 6 AM, up 11 AM - Thurs 4.30 up 8.30) but tolerably fit otherwise. Good night - good night - good night. Write. (\Tout … vous\) EDOUARD ARMAND GUSTAVE DE POLISSON - (\DEMI MORT-IVRE\)

[} [\71. To Arthur Moore\] }] [\[27 October 1889]\] Woodford No 999 Special Sunday Edition 1=D= The Desultory Driveller (\Cher Vieux.\) Delighted to hear of your recovery wh. is, I hope, decisive. also to receive Chap II which has one fault only its length - & that I hope to see rectified in an early installment. It is really though extremely good & plunges me into despair when I compare my own abortive IIIrd which is really deucedly difficult & wh. I have already begun 3 times on totally different lines. Thanks for your notes. I am obliged for you suggestion [^you: SIC EDN^] - but fear that I have still a soul above tractlets or else - am too far gone. I did not know you were (\en evidence\) last week or would have made a pilgrimage to your bedside. Please accept the will for the deed. When shall we meet again . .? Are you equal to Bridge Dk.? Any evening this week is for your choice - given 24 hours notice. Beverages - weak whiskey & water or milk & soda. Also the Haymarket? . . These things I leave to you: all volition has absolutely departed from me . . . So there is a choice of plaques? Methinks I cannot run to 2! (\Ergo\), if you will guide me one evening to the window in which they are displayed - perhaps I shall be able to summon up energy for the selection. Yes - that will be best - for we positively must meet one evening this week - neither as mules nor muleteers. There are 3 (\romans\) I want you to read & shall make you cart away with you on an early occasion. (i) Le Rouge et Le Noir - Stendhal (ii) Premier Amour. Turg‚nef. iii - Le Lys dans La Vall‚e. Balzac. - The last author I am reading systematically & I have discovered that he is really very great. Methinks also that the three above-named masters are responsible for the evolution of Hy James. The poem from The Globe is, I agree with you "drivel". If the execution however is inferior the impulse is praiseworthy. When are you going to call upon The FLAT? On the whole I have been agreeably surprised as regards Samuel. Whether he has acquired more tolerance, or that I with increase of slackness have gained in amiability, I know not, but undoubtedly, intercourse with him is cosier. You must certainly come to Gt Russell St - it is an institution worth of study. But let us meet first in some less fervid atmosphere - for I have much to say concerning Hildreth (\et\) Cie, I apologize for the absolute triviality of this letter. In effect I hardly know what I write. I can only imagine from the chaotic state of my brain that paralysis has actually commenced.

Come to the Dock if you can, or Pinolis - or here? - the first or last in preference. But n'more! [^GREEK CHARACTERS^], (\Adieu\). always yours ERNEST DOWSON. Fancy the Cambridgeshire!!!!!! Write! [} [\72. To Arthur Moore\] }] 31 October 1889 Bridge Dock (\Ch‚ri.\) Thanks for yours. Also for Chap IIB. You will by this time have recvd Chap III B. Don't let it startle you into a premature grave. Emend it all you can - a lot more than Chap I at any rate. Your letter depressed me - but I will try & live till next week. Satdy I go to a matin‚e of Minnie T. with Williams so may not see you - but also may. Go to the Leicester Sq. place on the chance. Afterwards I am due at the Flat. To-night I also purpose spending at the Flat. I saw Williams this afternoon at the Kettledrum. He told me of your praiseworthy industry & incited by it I have weakly promised to "do" Emile Augier's funeral for to-morrow. As you remark this is a purple world. Yes - your letter depressed me! Don't let it occur again. The chapter though worked the other way. Parts of it are brilliant - & the Princess is really an admirable study. I know her so well. Keep up to it & I will do my best also. Slack & I shall get slack. But we mustn't get slack. Won't you join the "Arts & Letters"? I have sent in my application, the prospectus was attractive. There are to be 500 original members at œ6.6. Arthur Severn the artist is my sponsor. You ought to join. Forms (to be had of A. E. Bright Secty. 37 Albermarle St. Picadilly) must be sent in by Nov. 4th. No more now. I am just getting rather drunk - or sober - I'm not sure which. Write soon Yrs always ADOLF, GUSTAVE DE L'ASSOMMOIR.

PS. Read "Pastels" 10 Portraits de Femmes (\par\) P. Bourget. (\C'est de l'oeuvre!\) PS 2 I will treat your complaint as in the strictest confidence & the more easily as I have not yet grasped its precise nature - but gather that it is venereal? Or is it - no - is it - no - not Crustacean!!! P.S. 4. Was it the issue of the railway carriage p-ke? (\Fi donc!\) Shocquing! [} [\73. To Arthur Moore\] }] 7 [\[actually 9]\] November 1889, 3 p.m. Middlesex Hospital College (\Cher\) Alphonse. Lefroy is dressing. Methinks I will wile away the hour of his (\toilette\) by a fragment of the Special Sunday. Your letter cheered me greatly. It dissipated the aftermath - more or less - of last night (\au\) Bedford. To come to your epistle (i) Bernard Shaw is on the "Star". i.e. I only accept your statement with explanations. (ii) I am going to send you another cartload (iii) Mind you do send it (iv) Hear hear (v) Good - There is a biography of Minnie Terry in this month's "Theatre", containing also a photo which I had before. It bears out my repeated assertion to sceptics concerning (\la chŠre petites\) age. She was born in the Gironde Jan 1. 1882. I am dining to-night with Samuel at a Polish Pot au Feu in Sherwood St, Glasshouse St. Soho. I discovered it. It is cheap; the cuisine is fair; I am the whole clientele, and there is a little Polish (\demoiselle\) therein (Minnie at 5st 7 - no not quite that - whom it is a pleasure to sit & look at. Excuse hopeless grammar. I know not of the rag, altho'

there was some thing which I wrote for it - at the Governor's request - which I wanted to appear - a fulsome panegyric of "Wanted a Wife" writ by a pal of his & produced on Monday at Edinburgh. I think however it is dead. I am glad at the 11th hour I did not put any money on the L'pool C - as I should have done but for an accident. I was going on Quartus. By the by - mark that horse & when he runs next plump on him with all your available capital. (\Verb Sap.\) This tip I may add doesn't come from Museum Mansions but from a man who spotted Primrose Day for the C'wtch. I am taking my mater one day next week to see Minnie - but any night bar Wednesday I will dine & theatrize with you. I went to the Savoy on the night I saw you - I believe I and not mine astral came but it was a spectral interview as you say. I meditate on the opus & will continue when - thou slacker - Chap III returns. In the meantime I work on a little study of the over critical man and an (\amourette\). Write to me soon, & remember that tho' the heavens fall etc we must must, must meet next week. Goodbye. I go to enter into temptation. (\Eheu.\) (\Adieu\) thine ED. I have just upset the ink. Lefroy curseth. [} [\74. To Arthur Moore\] }] [\[11 November 1889]\] Bridge Dock (\Cher\) Algernon, So sorry to hear of your new complications of complaints. The world is decidedly pea green. I write with this promptitude because in your eagerly received instalment of this morning you enclose a blank sheet - & methinks you may have made a mistake. Explain! . . . Yes the Lord Mayorlet's Tom Foolery was a nuisance. I spoofed it successfully by

going from Limehouse to Bloomsbury by tram. My Satdy night was like yours a wet 'un - but praise the gods my virtue didn't suffer as much as my liver. I will come & see you any evening next week you name - social functions barred - an' you care to see me, & can not come here or elsewhere. This long abstinence from you is preying on my constitution, & is distinctly bad for Diana. I have however rather a large faith in time. You must certainly come to Folitsocxs with me. The place is unpretending but less grimy than the "Pot au Feu" & perfectly deserted. One dines there well for about 1/5 inclusive. By the by I have (\une petite affaire\) on hand which promises some amusement at any rate. The tart is aged 15ó & belongeth to a tobacconist of Picadilly who apparently views his paternal responsibilities lightly. The circumstances attending the origin of our acquaintance I will tell you some other time. - She hath the torso of seventeen, at least, and wonderfully fine eyes - she has vouchsafed me a rendezvous for Sunday, when I tea with her at the Abode of Prophecy (No 4. M M) and for Satdy when I take her to a theatre. I have also made lavish vows of correspondence & am now contemplating an effusion, - a task of some difficulty. I confess I have not quite grasped the situation. How does it strike you? The name, I may mention is Bertha Van Raalte!!!!! May I hope to see you at the Mansions on Sunday afternoon & submit the (\demoiselle\) to your psychologia? Enough however of this paradox. I was very much annoyed about Quartus but - "I'll have him by & bye". - also Goldseeker. What is your tip for the M'ter November H.? Well, we are all mules or muleteers. Good old Tweedy - give him my blessing. I wasn't in bed all last night but started from Bloomsbury at about 8.30 A M - after rather a moist night. We all - Smith especially - got sublimely drunk & then divinely sober without sleeping at all - a phenomenon which has only occurred once before with me. Write. Yrs ever ED [} [\75. To Arthur Moore\] }] 16 [\[and 18]\] November 1889 Bridge Dock (\Mon cher Vieux.\) Your letter greatly cheered me - especially by the hope it held out of a meeting at Philippi. (\Soit!\) Next Wednesday let it be. I answer

now because [^EDN: 3-DOT SYMBOL^] I shall be spending the next 40 hours or so in Flatland & I may be prevented of the S'nday edtn. What, I wonder dost thou today? I shall probably, as I did last Satdy, play about 600 of (\Bigliardo\) with Lefroy. There is no doubt that the Van Raalte in question is a scion of the V.R. Perhaps I gave you a wrong impression of the worthy man. He may be a doting parent for all I know, he is at least an inefficient duenna. I had an epistle from Fraulein Van Raalte yesterday which was most quaint & touching & in such a superior school-girl-hand. You are perhaps right in being "off" Gortsachoff's though the cooking is less deleterious than Pinolis. But the environment - with the exception of Minnie Terry - would depress you. Let it be for a later day. What shall we do afterwards (\par exemple\)? A theatre? I think the Critic is dead - but haven't seen the Bad Man for a fortnight or more. I blush at the thought of Ludovicus. There has been no morning for the last two months on which I have not risen vowing to dispatch Him. Simple slackness alone has prevented me. It shall I swear go to somebody on Monday. I will refrain from speaking of the (\Opus novissimum\) until I see you. Ye gods what of the Manchester Nov. I have been tipped (i) Lady Roseberry (ii) Goldseeker (iii) Phil - (by you). (iv) Mercy (v) Rˆve d'Or. At present I contemplate 5/- apiece on Goldseeker & Mercy for a win & 5/- on each for a place. But then, Phil? And I should dearly like to be on Vasistas. Why shouldn't that superior filly redeem herself at the last? Fletcher of Queens is staying at the Flat to eat his dinners..... MONDAY Just back from Bloomsbury - in a more or less dilapidated condition - varying this time from forlorn liver to a dog bite on my lip & a Jemsmithian ear from a drunken brawl! on Satdy night. I look forward to Wednesday however. - Last night we had rather a quaint hour or so: I had an appointment with Miss Cigarettovitch at 6.0 & as she turned up with a girl of Swanton's acquaintance, we repaired after an interval at the Anglo-Austrian to number 4 - which had been previously cleared of the profane. Then the 4 of us, Swanton, Bertha, the 2nd (\damigellina\) & myself spent a most profitable & platonic evening on the sofa, "each with each", until 10 o'clock & the entrance of Smith & Co routed us. I must certainly show you my latest Amaryllis. I am going

to take her to the "Savoy" on Thursday or Friday. Good old Van Raalte. But enough of this perfunctation for which I apologize. Write & let me know where to meet you & what you propose doing. Yrs ever ERNEST DOWSON [} [\76. To Arthur Moore\] }] 26 November 1889 Bridge Dock WRITE SOON (\Mon cher.\) Many thanks for yours & apologies for the non-arrival of my own special Sunday. The spirit truly was willing but the hand was shaky. I saw you & Tweedy by the by on Sat'dy aftn'n when I was having tea with my mater in Gattis - even as in a procession you passed through the good old Adelaide until the throng received you out of our sight. How did you like the Haymarket? We were badly spoof‚ as for Miss Minnie Terry the play bill contained the name of Miss Dorothy Harwood. The latter is a very clever little girl but she is not pretty & she is not (\mignonne\) & my mater & I were both extremely bored by the play in consequence. I am glad you were not too depressed by the flat. Perchance we shall meet there again? re Van Raalte - I fancy that it has begun to pall. We spent a somewhat monotonous evening on Thursday & after I had sat for some two hours & a half on the sofa with my arm round the waist of the (\demoiselle\) & Lefroy ditto with his - we agreed that in view of the new act (\le jeu ne valait\) etc. And as we neither of us kept an appointment which we had made on Sunday evening with them & haven't written to explain since I guess the thing is off. Have you read La Bˆte Humaine yet? I am anxiously looking forward to it. re. R.O. I believe we agreed (i) that I was to go on writing retrospect, bringing in Oxbridge (ii) that you were to go on writing Chapters like Chapter 2 (iii) that Elsie (cf Pansy "Portrait of a Lady") is step-daughter of Diana (iv) that you were to invent a plot. (v) both parties

to hurry up I am really going to stay at home this week & nurse myself & go on with the Opus - & shun the "bitter delights of the" flat, & try & reduce my tongue to a decent size & a colour a few shades less lurid than it is at present. I will send you the result some time soon or better still if you can meet me Saturday aftn'n will bring it with you & matinize. As the Critic I hear is not dead but has "turned the corner" - I am expecting seats. It will outlive us, (\mon cher\) that evil sheet, depend upon it. (\Eh bien\) - for the present (\adieu\). The governor is away - things are slack - I propose to sit in front of the fire for the rest of the day, slack, sleep & read Stendhal. Write. always thine ED PS. When will you dine at Kossuth's with me? "Ludovicus" has gone to Chatto & Windus. How will enclosed advt do for next time? [} [\77. To Arthur Moore\] }] 29 November 1889 Bassin du Pont (\Cher\) Alphonse. A line to acknowledge yours. I shall probably be out of town tomorrow & (certainly) Sunday otherwise I would try & meet you after your theatre which is I presume la Gait‚. If I am still in Babylon I shall go to see the last of the "Yeomen of the G" I shall be delighted to squat beneath your mahogany any day next week so far as I know at present - unless the beastly catarrh which shivers my handkfs at present seriously increases. However advise me of this at your leisure. I have been thinking of the R.O. but have done nought further yet - chiefly because [^EDN: 3-DOT SYMBOL^] I have been busily engaged on the "Study" whereof I told you & which should-be finished to-night. I will send it to you as soon as it is f. c'd for your criticism & suggestion for title & destination. At present I contemplate "Murrays", "English Illtd" or "Blackwoods". Hoping to see you soon. I will write shortly. always yrs ED. PS. I have been such a good boy all this week - off alcohol & beer - off pastry (fig) not up in Flatland since Sunday & writing hard all the week. "So there"! Love to Tweedie.

[} [\78. To Arthur Moore\] }] 24 December [\[1889]\], 12.30 Woodford From Ernest Christopherovitch the slack man to Arthur Moorevitch the Parkplace vilain with all good wishes for this most melancholy season - Greeting! (\Mon cher vieux\): I am sorry for the unprecedented length of my silence. (\Ma chŠ vuole?\) I have been a prey to my d-d, vacillating inability to come to a decision since we had that charming - always-to-be-delightfully-recollected evening. And finally I have decided - & wrote yestereen to CHS. to cry off. (\Eheu inertiam!\) I have racked my brains in vain to work the scheme with my people's connivance & I fear that my present relations are too strained to permit me to carry it out without - i.e. without risking the total cutting off of supplies. And now I have neither the energy nor the courage to contemplate the winning of "the wages of going on & not to die" by any other process than that of sitting, sitting, sitting. I fear it must be Bridge Dock ad infinitum. Well so much the more time for Hildreth, Martyr (\et\) Cie. I can, now the roulette idea is settled, give all the more time to those eminent people & I hope within a day or two to send you the result of my cogitations. Come back though soon to your old habitations even to the [^CANC. TEXT: square^] fields of Mesech, & let us Haymarket & Gaietieize & and Polandize to the end of our days. It is written so! I have been to the Gondoliers to-night with Smith & Lefroy. It is clever - witty - musical - the scenery is charming - the dresses are all that could be desired - & the general impression, at least on me, was unsatisfactory in the extreme. It is certainly inferior to the Mikado - Patience - & Ruddigore - to say nothing of the Yeomen. And (\bien sur\) in the whole score there is nothing so deliciously brimming over with melody as the "Sing me your song oh!" Last night - lo what a theatrist I am becoming - I went to Benson's "Midsummer Night's Dream". Very little Shakespere - very much Mendelsohn is my criticism - with a rider however to the effect that if one must have Shakespeare diluted I prefer Benson's dilution to that fool Irving's. - However the theatre is a great resource, Nothing has been more cheering to me than the sudden resurrection of my delight in the play, which I feared a month or so back had become finally a weariness to the flesh of me. I am becoming once more a whale at it & intend to continue so to do. See the advisability of going through

a course of London Music Halls! Bar burlesque & Penleyan comedy I am becoming tolerant of this insipid British drama. Even bad melo doesn't cause me to vomit as it did of old. To return to our muttons - come back to Babylon & we will (i) dine in Poland. - ? - N.B. I dine there every night now & little Mdlle de Poland is beginning to greet me with a smile. (ii) go to Ruy Blas - (iii) go to A Man's Shadow (iv) dine at the Arts & Letters. N.B. This is contingent on the arrival of sundry Xmas (\pourboires\) from sundry Aunts which will probably not come. Parenthetically let me also remark that the said A & L is the dreariest, most sombre, respectable, Philistine, solemn & depressing institution in London. Still we will haply sample it - moral - A bohemian should no more think of belonging to a club than of taking to himself a wife! (v) Do some Pantomimes via. Herbert Williams. (vi) Swear solemnly by the bones of Aeneas NEVER to go to that bad show of Barnum's. N.B. Ugh! (vii) develop Felix Martyr (This is also a no I - feature of the programme). (viii) Do a Bridge Dk. Slack. ix - ? La Tosca. x. The Middleman. Of good truth thse Xmas mock-merry makings about take the cake for pure a I almond spirit-shakers! Would they & the d-d indigestions they ensure were over. I fly away from them immediately after early dinner to-morrow & remain with Smith, "Blafonski" & Co. until Thursday. But I fear I shall not even so escape the general depression. I hope you are sharing it. Why - oh why - haven't we done away with anniversaries - Why do we have watches or clocks or hours at all - at all? - I believe - (\en passant\) - that I have trapped the influenza! Well - well pardon this fooling & write soon & copiously. Methinks I will swear off wine & women & weeds & late hours & confine myself to the writing of the r.o, & the cult of Minnie Terry. Otherwise there is no balsam in Gilead! (\Quels\) miserable fools of fortune we are! Why can't

we accept the beastly limitations of our cursed existence - or if not, score off nature in the only way that is final - by the happy despatch. Shall we write a novel - the study of a man two-sided, i.e. by temperament etc, (\humanus\), pleasure loving, keenly sensible to artistic impressions, & to the outward & visible beauty of life - & [^CANC. TEXT: equally by temperament etc^] at the same time morbidly conscious of the inherent grossness & futility of it all - & so trace the struggle between his sensibility & his fanaticism - until the latter has spoilt the whole of art & nine tenths of life for him, & made him either a suicide, a madman or simply a will-less, disgustful, drunken debauchee. I don't see any other possible d‚nouement for our novel. Well - write soon. always yours ERNEST DOWSON. [} [\79. To Arthur Moore\] }] (\Dimanche\) [\[29 December 1889]\] Woodford (\Mon cher Vieux\) What news of thee, thou unconscionable? I alas - am in the same case with the King of Portugal, the Czar, Randy & other crowned heads - though by a singular oversight the daily press does not publish bulletins of me. Since Xmas day I have been prostrate with Russian influenza alias (\grippe\) & know not yet whether I am out of the wood. I trust that you are not in like case? Write speedily to inform me thereof or give an account of your silence. Yes: (\la grippe\) has gripped me & I stay here wrapped in tarpaulin jackets, consuming handkerchiefs by the score & reading all the trash the Woodford Cirng Library contains. I prithee write. (\Quelle sacr‚e\) climate. Are you back in the (\triste\) metrop yet? I can't compose my mind to the manufacture of fiction but can only peruse it. Goodbye Sweetheart - that silly, sentimental, unwholesome, readable book I have just read again - also Dust by J. Hawthorne which is Besant-ly - a Gaboriau or 2 - and now I am tackling Dr Paulus. How my soul abhors the blatant good-humoured, self-satisfaction

of Besant & his school. I think I must read L'Immortel - over again for a change. I know not when I shall be let out again. When I am we must meet. Write soon Yrs ED.

[} [\80. To Arthur Moore\] }] Sunday [\5 January 1890\] The Arts and Letters Club, 27 Albemarle Street, W. (\Mon cher.\) (\Voyez-vous donc!\) I am cured - (although I have started a bad cold since (\la grippe\) left me). I will Haymarket any day this week you like. Only if possible give me a choice of days as I have several noxious engagements this week & must fix them up early in it. This is rather a dull place (\bien entendu\), but one can slack here with some comfort. You must come & find me here one day. I hope the plague hasn't seized you. By the bye where is Ludovicus? I can't write now somehow - not "Felix Martyr" nor nothing. I am (\us‚\). Meet me as soon as you can & we will Poland & converse. The 2nd instalment of Hy James is almost as bad as the first - but Hardy on Candour in Fiction is worth the 6d. No more now. Write to-morrow if possible. Yrs ever ERNEST DOWSON [} [\81. To Arthur Moore\] }] Wednesday [\8 January 1890\] Arts and Letters Club (\Ch‚ri.\) I have mislaid the effusion which I wrote to you from Limehouse & so send a brief note to express the extreme satisfaction with which I will call for you to morrow evening (Thursday) at the hour of six or thereabouts & introduce you & be introduced by you respectively to Poland & "Good for Nothing". Thursday is the best day for me also (\Au revoir … demain\) in haste ED

[} [\82. To Arthur Moore\] }] (\Dimanche\) early morning i.e. 1.30 Saturday night, 11-12 January 1890 Woodford Observe this is dated. (\Caro mio.\) I have nothing on earth to tell you therefore [^EDN: 3-DOT SYMBOL^] I may as well set to & write you a lengthy epistle. (\Merci\) for a most acceptable night on Thursday. It was certainly most annoying about Mignon: also the "Arts & Letters" (\quart d'heure\) was cheerless but otherwise I enjoyed myself & "Good for Nothing" was quite good enough. I went last night with Williams (two more stalls out of that wretched sheet!) to "Tra La La." Will you esteem me more or less if I tell you that I enjoyed it, - more than "Faust Up to Date". I will go with you to it when you have seen at least 1 act of La Tosca. Otherwise you will not appreciate it as the entire point of it lies in the marvellous caricature which Miss Ayrtoun presents of the Bernard Beere. I positively chortled aloud at times. Arthur Roberts is Percy at 5st 7. The Queen is an excellent caricte of Miss Leclercq, music pretty, libretto often waggish, - chorus, dancing, supers & stage management unutterably bad. - We must do the Middleman next however - (\n'est ce pas?\) - I feel my courage rapidly waning for to-morrow & fear that after all my horror of dances will outweigh my curiosity to sample Stuart Headlam's ballet girls. I have changed my mind as to the immediate submittal to you of "Ysabeau". I am in train for another chapter which I have just laid down & shall resume when this letter is finished. And you may as well be bored by 4 as 3 chaps of that unfortunate work while you are at it. I think they are beginning to bore me horribly those estimable personae of mine. I am very much annoyed in fact - because they have all got (those few who are left) into such a distressfully lofty atmosphere that it is quite too much of a strain on my harassed mind to make them converse. And the (\petite damoiselle\) whom I meant to make much of doesn't seem to fit in quite, so I can't let myself out on reporting her - which is also annoying. Talking of (\petite d's\) by the bye I am afraid you were not favourably impressed by Poland. Or rather you were less disgusted with the (\Pot au Feu\) character of the cooking than I feared - & didn't enthuse as

much as I expected over (\la petite personne\) who gives it so much local colouring. This is not as it should be. Half the charm of dining there lies in the fact that you are honoured with the conversation - if you are an (\habitu‚\) - of that little lady. I would dine off fish snacks in Whitechapel for a similar privilege - which is certainly more than I would do for the society of any "(\jeune fille\)" in existence. I shall take you there again however - but you shall have (i) mock tartel (ii) (\salz-gherken\) (iii) veal cotlets - instead of "hearts" which I confess gave me a mighty indigestion on Thursday. Excuse these (\pilules\) - but I warned you that I had absolutely nothing to say. I am meditating still on "Felix Martyr" - so far with no brilliant result. I will let you have a sample soon though & shall expect you to send me the nucleus of a plot in your Sunday edtn. I am sitting in my great-aunts dressing gown & demolishing 1 oz of honey dew & 1 bottle of Burgundy. I wish you were here. Perhaps when the influenza retires you will do a Satdy to Monday. By exemplary behaviour during the last week - for me - I am once more on terms of amenity with my people & my governor is going to retire to Hastings shortly. By the bye - I was at the Museum this afternoon working away like a nigger at my Chamfort when lo - ye Gods imagine what strange sight I saw! Sitting negligently graceful on the table of the Vicious Camel & talking to her with great & intimate urbanity was the celebrated Herbert Williams - proprietor, editor, staff & office boy of The Critic. He tells me that she is a niece of Tay Pay of The Star - a Miss O'Connor & he belongs to the same secret society with her - where they cast horoscopes & produce astrals etc. I chortled! All the rest of the menagerie were there as usual at the same old desks. Do B.M. readers ever die? I shall have to give up going there if it tends to immortality in this way. Did you see Tweedy to-day? I am quite delighted with the burst of energy - (plumistic) - which has come over me since I saw you. I was afraid that after the effort of refusing the attractive offer of Swanton - blackest ennui would seize me. On the contrary it has rather produced the opposite effect. I suppose that the overdue depression will come on to-morrow. I am wise therefore to ensure the Sunday edition. Lefroy writes me dismally that his people are sending him to a French school to teach English & be instructed in that subtle tongue - a ruse to obstruct him from the alleged immoral woman who is supposed to have hold of him, which he resents. I shall miss the dear obstinate fool immensely but if he comes back an accomplished French linguist!!! Could you support him on the Broads? - But now in the name etc etc always yours ERNEST DOWSON

[} [\83. To Arthur Moore\] }] 27 January 1890 Bridge Dock (\Mon Vieux.\) Thanks for yours. I was afflicted with an abnormal lethargy yestdy which must excuse my silence. I am sorry you didn't look in at the B.M. on Saturday. I fell a victim to that godless journalist Williams - & was reduced by three hours of his society to the verge of suicide & murder. He is certainly the meanest thing alive, & the most illiterate. In the evening I slacked & eventually met Image & Horne at midnight outside the "back door" of the Alhambra! & was introduced to various trivial (\coryph‚es\). There was something eminently grotesque in the juxtaposition. Horne very erect & slim & aesthetic - & Image the most dignified man in London, a sort of cross in appearance between a secular (\abb‚\) & Baudelaire, with a manner (\du 18me siŠcle\) - waiting in a back passage to be escort to ballet girls [^CANC. TEXT: whom they don't even !!!^] I confess this (\danseuse\)-worship escapes me!! Horne seems a man of merit however. I am going to tea with him this afternoon. By the bye - I see that my "Diary of a Successful Man" is advertized for appearance in Feb. Good old chequelet. How I shall curse if it's less than a tenner. On the strength of it I am going to invest in a plaque which I have found in Wardour St - (supposing I can get it for a reasonable amount). I should like you to view it. It is coloured & is possibly meant for Mignon but if so - the likeness is marvellously idealized. It is possibly from a picture: in any case it's ideal loveliness & the first time I remember to have come across it. I am glad you are not reduced (\… vomir\) over Ysabeau etc. I am afraid it's awfully high-falutin. I meant to write one chapter more - but whereof I know not. If you think it should end there it shall. That must be considered when we meet & I prithee, (\mon respectable ami\), let the meeting be soon. Any day you like - Thursday or another - save Saturday when I may very likely be at Cambridge. Yes, make it Thursday. Excuse my babbling on. It is but 3.0 & I can't leave till 4. & there is nought else to do. My correspondence has assumed enormous dimensions of late & is one of the most consoling parts of my existence. (\En passant\) if you want a perfectly charming half hour - buy, borrow or steal Hy. Jame's "Partial Portraits". They are a lot of criticisms - probably you know them - including G. Eliot, Emerson, Daudet, De Maupassant, & Stevenson. Some I have not read: those I have, fill me with wonder & amazement. None of his novels contain happier sentences. e.g. he says that women in R.L.S' are so many "superfluous

girls in a boy's play". But he touches the bull's eye as easily in every page. I am also reading Stendhal's "De l'Amour": with mixed feelings. But like James, his worthy disciple, Stendhal is always piquant, although unlike James one often disagrees with him. He says "(\l'ennui “te tout, jusqu'au courage de se tuer.\)" - elsewhere: "(\On convient qu'une petite fille de dix ans a vingt fois plus de finesse qu'un petit polisson du mˆme ƒge. Pourquoi … vingt ans est-elle une grande idiote, gauche, timide et ayant peur d'une araign‚e, et le polisson un homme d'esprit?\)" . . . The typical English woman he guages thoroughly "(\la v‚ritable Anglaise accomplie, d‚stin‚e … satisfaire pleinement … toutes les convenances et … donner … un mari toutes les jouissances de l'orgueil aristocratique le plus maladif, et un bonheur … mourir d'ennui\)" - Again - "(\Rien n'ennuie l'amour-gout comme l'amour-passion dans son partner\)" Pardon these extracts. I am glad you have done the "Middleman". On the whole I agree with your remarks thereon. I have a great & unreasonable aversion to Garden though - in whatever he plays. Smith & Swanton are both at Oxford now. They want me to come up & I have half promised - but I think my courage will fail me. I am afraid it would be too depressing. I am beginning to feel hopeful about Ludovicus. It's a good work. At any rate I have no doubt that publishers will leap for it when "Hildreth" has appeared. I am going to let myself out on that now. Keep it rolling round in your luminous mind even if you haven't time to write much of it at present. Let me wind up this effusion before I drift on to another sheet. Write soon & do your level best to keep Thursday or any other day you prefer this week, open for us. thine ever ERNEST DOWSON [} [\84. To Arthur Moore\] }] 4 March 1889 [\[actually c. 4 February 1890]\] Bassin du Pont (\Mon gros Prosper.\) This is to inform you that the poor fool who sub-edits "The Argosy" has returned "The Passion" to me with the usual (\banalit‚s\). Whither

shall I next dispatch it? Trischlers? or Chambers? or where?.... Yours gratefully to hand. Next week or this ( - almost any night - ) I shall be delighted to see you here. (\Jambon au Skrish - n'est ce pas?\) Some time soon I must go & see the curtain-raiser at the Avenue - & sample the quality of a new infant phenomenon whom I am told I shall like. This week I must economise!! I was weak enough to pay a book seller's bill of about œ4.10. I dined with a naval cousin of mine at the Cri. rather recklessly yesterday - & now after purchasing Marius - I am rather more oofless than usual in spite of Macmillans (Or is it because?) modest cheque. Praise the gods at least that none of it has passed into feminine hands. Write re: Lud. at your earliest. ED I am sorry to hear of the death of Mrs H. Moore. A funeral is more detestable than anything I know of except a wedding. I heard by the way from Lefroy yesterday. He sends me a most rueful account of his m‚nage - sleeping as he does in a "(\dortoir\) containing 16 French beds" (? what is the peculiarity of a French bed?) & without proper washing accomodation. I have also writ to Thomas - Please assure Tweedy that I shall be delighted [^CANC. TEXT: if^] to see him down here any afternoon. Or send him to Poland (\vers 7h.\) He will find me there bar accidents to-morrow, Friday & Sat. Perhaps on the latter day I shall see you. No more now. Hastily ED [\84A. see page 422\] [} [\85. To Arthur Moore\] }] 7 February 1890 Bridge Dock (\Caro Mio.\) If you are not going to do anything particular to-morrow (Sat. afternoon) will you lunch with me at the "Arts & Letters" (27 Albemarle St) at about 2.15 oclock. Drop me a card there at once if so. I want to converse with you re Ludovicus etc. I shall not be able to get there before 2.15 I fear. In haste ECD

P.S. If you get this letter to-night post your answerlet to this basin. Then I shall probably go straight to the Museum if you are not able to turn up. [} [\86. To Arthur Moore\] }] Friday [\[7 February 1890]\] Arts and Letters Club Dear Moore. Just a line to say that I am sorry I shall not be here to-morrow, after all - as I am going to take Missy to the Egyptian Hall & afterwards have to meet Hillier to take him down with me to Woodford. Write Yrs ERNEST DOWSON [} [\87. To Arthur Moore\] }] Monday [\[?10 February l890]\] Bridge Dock (\Caro Mio.\) (\Je suis d‚sol‚.\) Have only found your card this morning. But although I hardly expected you I was at the A & L from 2-3.30 lunching there in solitary boredom. (\Pourquoi oh pourquoi\) did you not enquire of me from the Cerberus? in haste ED P.S. I live in anticipation of Thursday. Mind & come. Sunday edn is at Woodford, left there inadvertently. Will be posted to-night - [} [\88. To Arthur Moore\] }] Tuesday [\[11 February 1890]\] [\[Bridge Dock]\] (\Mon Vieux.\) My edition (\de luxe\) is so out of date that I will refrain from inflicting it on you & merely write a line to thank you for yours received this morning & once more express my regret for our (\avortement\) on Satdy. It was lucky that you met Money. But wherefore did you not rout me out? However better luck another time. I went last night in solitary state to the Avenue. Little Miss Gracie Murielle, in a curtain raiser which has more merit than most I have seen, is worth seeing - but don't, oh don't - if you go for that be deluded into sitting through the insufferably dreary farce which follows. I perceive "Mignon's" matin‚e is to be at the Globe on the 25th in a sketch by C. Scott. I am going to book a seat - is there any hope of your being there? I wish the show did not include a play for which I have such an extreme aversion as "Adrienne Lecouvreur". Still one must be thankful for small mercies - I have been reading "The Passion of Dr Ludovicus". It is an extremely good work: I can't believe that publishers will persist in their evil ways. I will positively send it off to-night (\quelque part\)! I have however the most unaccountable aversion to doing up parcels. I have also been writing a new 2n Chap for "Mme de V" to fit in between the original chaps I & II. I hope to have it complete for your criticism when you come here on Thursday. For you will - must come. I will kill the fatted porker & deprive the oranger of its choicest fruit for you. Let me have a card to-morrow to acquaint me if it is a fixture. (\Eh bien\) - no more now. I have a bad cold, leaden spirits, and (\in fine\) feel all round a pretty fair "(\pourriture\)". (\Au revoir.\) Thine (\in senitio omnium\) ED

[} [\89. To Arthur Moore\] }] (\Dimanche\) [\[16 February 1890]\] Woodford (\Caro Mio.\) I was very glad to get your letter, wh. partly dissipated the depressing results of your mother's alarming p.c. - I was coming up - had not that letter arrived - to the Vale of Maida to make my enquiries in person - Lud: is at Chambers now. May it find a haven there - & at any rate not return too soon. The effort of doing it up & dispatching, is to me something stupendous. I stayed last night with Smith in the Wood. He keeps his term there from Sat. to Monday as a rule. He tells me that (i) we have bumped Exeter in the torpid, chiefly owing to Swanton's excellent rowing (2) that Thomas is not up this term owing to the death of his father. He has rooms with S in St Ald's. & they want me to go up before the term is out. But I doubt if I shall be able to. With regard to a meeting - let it be soon! any day you like this week will be equal for me. At Bridge Dk. or in Poland - whichever you will, but oh - let it be somewhere & soon. I too am exquisitely bad - & I have a graveyard cough of the most alarming dimensions. We will compare our symptoms when we meet. My people all go away shortly to Southampton & Hastings severally. I know not whether I shall go to the Dock or stay here. It will depend on whether our cook who is pretty & young or our housemaid who is old & ugly as sin goes for a holiday - If the former I shall be permitted to rest here. In any case I hope to see something of you. I dine almost invariably in Poland now. The atmosphere of the place has the most cheering effect on me. The dear child becomes daily more kind & gracious. The other day she came & sat by me & conversed with great affability all the time I was there. She is really the most quaint & engaging little lady - & she can play the fiddle very prettily. Do you remember, (\par exemple\), Pater's note in "Marius" - to the effect that when one's pain in life seems just a stupid, brutal outrage on us & one can seek refuge from it, at best, only in a mere "general sense of goodwill, somewhere, perhaps" - sometimes the discovery of that goodwill if it is only "in a not unfriendly animal [^CANC. TEXT: has^] may seem to have explained & actually justified the existence of our pain at all". That is really almost true. Certainly the mere friendliness of a child has some such effect on me - seems to me at times to be not merely a set-off against one's innumerable unliquidated claims against life but a quite final satisfaction of them - an absolute end in itself - Corollorary (& my apology for dilating to you so much on quite trivial incidents) - that

there is really after all nothing so important as that one should be constantly trying to multiply these moments & to make them last. Well - no more now. Write at your earliest etc, - take care of yourself, don't get (\la grippe\) & come speedily to (\Votre devou‚\) ED [} [\90. To Arthur Moore\] }] Wednesday, 19 February 1890 Arts and Letters Club (\Caro Mio.\) Just received your undated note. The Cerberus tells me it was left on Monday - But am I dreaming or did we not meet on Monday? Or was it yesterday or perchance to-night? - A question I cannot answer until I see you. Let that be to-morrow (\n'est ce pas\)? - as soon after six as you like I [^CANC. TEXT: was down^] shall be living at the Bridge from to-morrow. in haste yrs ED [} [\91. To Arthur Moore\] }] [\[23 February 1890]\] Bridge Dock - The Back Office - in an easy chair before a colossal fire - time about 9.P.M. - Sunday. - Would you were here. Still if a pencil is permitted (\au lieu\) of the less facile pen I will endeavour to send you the accustomed (\chronique\) - I did a weird thing yesterday. I heard that there was a special 10.15 "Socker" train from Paddington & I repaired there - (why did not you?) & found a great Pandemonium, many men I knew - amongst them Evans of Merton, Swanton, De Castro - etc. In the

issue I found myself at Oxford ((\naturalich\)) at about 11.40 PM. & stayed with Swanton. I came back to-day - finding it supremely (\triste\): did not go near Queen's at all - nowhere in fact. A place which is born again every 3 years has its drawbacks. Never again, (\mon vieux\). Cambridge as often, as you like, but not Oxford. (\Mon Dieu comme j'‚tais content de revoir ce fichu\) Paddington. Don't forget that we must try & work a (\theatrum\) this week. (\Il le faut absolument.\) Otherwise - This fire is certainly an excellent business. I expand under its cheerful influence. I positively beam. Would I could muster the energy to open a bottle of Burgundy. I assume you had no plans yesterday as you wrote not: I dined (\en Pologne\) as usual yesterday, & wished you had been there. I went later than usual & it was agreeably quiet & private. - (I am getting too slack to write - the above three sentences have taken me over an hour to indite - Would I could light a pipe - but the (\tabac\) (caporal - by the bye in blue packets) is on the table. No news fr. Chambers. I still remain perfectly sterile - can neither complete what is begun, devise new stories or think of our Felix. The bad taste of "Yeast" is still in my mouth. I try & rectify it with "Marius". To read Chamfort - as it implies cutting the leaves - I am far too slack. (\Enfin - enfin\) - write & tell me how you are finding yourself. Perhaps though I shall call for you to-morrow on my westward way. But write - write. Certainly my ideas flow not at all to-night. I apologize for this perfectly inane scribble. It is the expression of a long & fairly comfortable yawn. If only Thursday did not loom over me with its vista of drawing room inanities! I wish you could come to Mignon's matin‚e on Tuesday. I guess I shall skip Adrienne Lecouvreur. We must go to the Garrick, (\n'est ce pas\)? I am beginning to feel exquisitely sleepy. Yes - (\il faut le dire - bon soir - bon soir\) thou dreamer of commentaries. (\Tout … vous\) ED [} [\92. To Arthur Moore\] }] Tuesday morning [\[4 March 1890]\] Woodford (\Caro Mio.\) May I look upon Thursday as fixed? Or - how would Wed: suit you as I rather want (excuse my banal taste) to do a St Jame's Ballad

Concert. Whichever day you like however. And I am really quite anxious to see Fred Leslie. I have just completed fair copying Chap II (new) of M=me= de V. I will bring it when we meet next & get you to read it. It's all analysis. I had a very pleasant evening on Satdy. after all, my flight was precipitate - I had to wait 40 min: at L'pl St for my train. Hope your constitution (& reading) proceeds well. Mine is AA1. - special survey. I thought of looking you up to-night but I arrived rather too early & so went & played (\bigliardo\) with Walton. Dined as usual in Poland. (\La p‚tite\) would not allow me to sit in my usual place but led me up above the salt to the fireside table You can imagine how "gratted & flattified" I was. I hope she will be expansive when you come there with me next - it will amuse you to study her I think. She is the most charming little chatterbox & we are quite on a footing of (\vieils amis\) by this time. The Roumanians have retired to Roumania - viƒ Paris this morning - so unless the Bohees are equally vociferous we may be able to dine there at an earlier hour than 7.30 with comparative quiet. I am still - alas - perfectly unproductive - can't write a line or get a solitary idea. I skimmed through "Bel Ami" on Sunday. I think I must have confused it with Maizeroy's novel - for it was new to me. It's clever, (\n'est ce pas\)? - cleverer I think than "Une Vie" - but without the pathos of that. I prefer "Marius". By the bye have you noted - but my pipe expires - the small hours are getting perceptibly longer. (\Je vais me coucher.\) "(\Dormez bien et moi aussi\)" - as Ad‚laide says. WRITE Yrs ED Where oh where is that unhappy "P of L" to seek a home now? Do suggest somewhere. ?All the Year Round? Family Herald?

[} [\93. To Arthur Moore\] }] 9 March 1890 Bridge Dock (\Caro Arturo mio.\) Excuse pencil. I went to the St. James last night with Plarr & Walton. The house was crammed: the play very disappointing. Bourchier indeed as Jacques (pronounced there Jaykez!) although far too genial acted extremely well. The Jersey Lilium is a fine animal - I had never seen her before - but a most unideal Rosalind. Cautley's Orlando is a most offensive performance & Sugden's refined Touchstone an absurdity. Celia - a Miss Amy McNeil - was too bad & inartistic to talk about. The show, in short, is a bad show & Mrs Langtry is an (\‚spŠce de type\) that I should detest even if she could act wh. she can't. (\Tace!\) I hope to see you shortly Mon. or Tues. even if, as I half fear from your vague remarks on Friday that we dine not this week. By the way in my Chap II anent my 18th cent cultured (\rou‚\) you pencil "cf New Republic" Does this mean that I have plagiarized? I have a sort of vague fear that I may have reproduced a passage from that excellent work but have not the book to refer to. Tell me I prithee if this is so that I may amend accordingly. (\Par exemple\) - read last week's "Speaker" Grant Allen of all people therein takes up the cudgels for American fiction, Howells & James - chiefly Howells & speaks of Silas Lapham as a Great Work of art to rank with Vanity Fair & Richard Feverel! I am going to make an effort when I have finished this scrawl to begin my Chamfort article. Where you at the Museum yesterday? [^Where: SIC EDN^] I was there at two thirty - got out half a dozen books - met Plarr & went & lunched with him in that dismal bun room - strolled round the Elgin marbles for about half an hour & came back again. We then read for some 5 minutes - recognized the lanky figure of Williams & beat a hasty retreat to Image's. So as usual my afternoon's severe reading at the Museum did not come off. Are you going to see Benson's Hamlet? I may go. Oh me - I wish I could get into the vein for producing some more copy & oof. Send me the right idea for a short story & we will share the problematical proceeds. I read Bellamy's "Dr Heidenhoff's Process" the other afternoon. It is better than "Looking Backwards" - though that does not say much. What an exhausting day Sunday is! It is impossible to have any ideas on Sunday.

It is a mistake to get up on Sunday. I put off that operation as usual until 1.0 oclock but I feel as if I had got up several hours too soon. Let me conclude these bagatelles. Write soon. Yrs ever ED [} [\94. To Arthur Moore\] }] 14 March 1890 Bridge Dock (\Caro Mio\) I am sorry that I have not been able to look you up thus far. Perhaps to-morrow? Could you - supposing you matinize & I don't see you previously at the B.M) - could you then five-o'clocquer with me at the Arts & Letters at 5.30. To-night as the governor is away I dine at Woodford: to-morrow I shall probably Polandize. Send me a card to notify your movements as early as possible, to the Club. I was in St John's Wood on Wed. night with the Prophet who went back to Oxford yesterday but returns to-day (if he can spoof collections) for good. I purchased another photo of Mignon yesterday - a Man's Shadow one (Act iv costume) a very pretty one but singularly like Mdlle Ad‚laide. My collection now comprises 3 cabinets 2 cartes de v. & 1 plaque. I heard from Bouthors yesterday. He comes to England about the 1st prox - for how long or with what intent he does not state. I really must try this time & work a (\r‚union\) between you. This is real May. The river looks charming & I have been sitting with open windows. Are you reading Lucas Malet's "Wages of Sin" now appearing in the Universal Review - It strikes me as rather excellent. I believe I told you I purposed going to Hastings next week. It will be a (\corv‚e\) but I suppose it must be endured. Would the gods it were over. I have just consented to be (\entremetteur\) of a critique Plarr has written of his pal Boas' play to the Critic. I hope it doesn't bring the great Williams down on me again. Excuse this unnecessary flow of ink (\de nihilo\). I believe my brain must be softening. - The effect on the river now is most charming

- the sun very much chastened by the clouds just lightens it up without colouring it at all. Dominant tones grey & gold - effect very cold - like a French landscape with a coldness which doesn't reach one's temperature. However the tempus appears to be 4.45 & I will even take my homeward way. (\Adios.\) Thine ED [} [\95. To Arthur Moore\] }] [\[28 March 1890]\] Woodford (\Mon Vieux.\) (\Quelle dommage\) that I have not seen you this week - more especially as I am rather spoofed to-morrow & shall be at Bridge Dock till about 4.0. I took an afternoon off to-day instead but thought it would be no good looking after you. Well - we must meet & dine next week without fail. Swanton took me - (\sane invitum\) - to the Empire on Tuesday. It was in usual state of pommade. I met a good many men I knew however - & slept afterwards with Smith at the Wood - after many b & s's: the reason I suppose that my liver & nerves have been in such a rasped condition ever since that I have not mustered energy to look you up. Thanks for the Purloined Relique. I will do my best but it seems to me really extremely good & I am not at all confident that any emendments I may make won't spoil it. I wanted to go to the French Artists this afternoon & study the Corots of which I hear there is a good assortment - but the gods would not give me the energy. I suppose you have been - (\n'est ce pas\)? My health annoys me very much just at present. I should like a new liver & kidneys to match. I have barely anything for breakfast, no lunch, - latterly not even afternoon tea - & then after forcing myself with some nausea to swallow a cutlet in Poland suffer from indigestion half the night. This is not as it should be. I literally live on tobacco nowadays. We must really effect a speedy juncture & compare our symptoms. Read the summary of Tolstoi's latest (unpublished) novel "The Kreutzer Sonata" in the current Universal - I did not know that Great man had such excellent views on sexual questions. He talks of marriage as a heinous crime against morality &

humanity - vituperates as strongly as I could wish against the monstrous division drawn between licensed & unlicensed lust - by the conventionalist & the pedantic, banal Hegelian - & (\in fine\) [^CANC. TEXT: proposes^] preaches Laurence Oliphant's "sympneumatic" affection purged of animalism. All this from a Xtian of the deepest dye is eminently surprising and admirable. Another article in the same review (in French) on the (\d‚cadent\) poet Paul Verlaine is also stimulating - chiefly for the digression on Rimbauld (Verlaine's friend & master) "(\le grand d‚class‚\)" - who was so consistent in his social hatred that he threw away his identity & dropped finally into the crowd just when he was at the zenith of his success. Verlaine parted from him in Metz in 1876 - & since then no one has heard of or seen him. That was a worshipful man, my masters. Please contrast our worthy Hegelian laureate, Browning William Morris (\et\) Cie! I think if I can work that incident up a little it will form a very fitting d‚noument to my unhappy "Mme de V." wh: (\(en passant)\) I may mention is likely to be fair copied about the A.D. 1900. This must stand, (\mon cher\), for the Sunday edition & entreats an answer. Excuse my beastly prolixity but I am deucedly disinclined for slumber & have no literature to peruse. I am going to the Garrick with my mater very shortly. I suppose I shall have to dine at Pr‚vitali's or Gatti's. I should like to take her to Poland but I suppose at a reasonable hour for theatre going it would hardly do? (\Ces sacr‚s Boh‚es\)! I am sure she would be charmed with my little lady. My dinners there now remind me more than anything else of certain hospitable "nursery teas" at which some years ago I was a frequent visitor before my cousins who partook of them had grown up into formidable young ladies. (\La petite\) comes & sits by me & paints or talks as a matter of course whenever I have not "company" - and her adoring mama from time to time favours me with anecdotes in most unintelligible English of her amazing qualities & her extreme (\gentilesse\). Children certainly reconcile one - (at least in my case) more than anything else to one's life but on the whole I am more & more convinced each day that there is nothing really worth doing or having or saying. At least I can't fix on any tangible object or aim in life which seems so desirable as the having got it finally over - & the remaining (\in perpetuo\) without desire or aim or consciousness whatsoever. "(\Tout casse - tout passe - tout lasse\)". - "(\Enfin on se lasse de soi\)" - M. Aurelius' optimism - wh. certainly had no "secret of cheerfulness"

in it reduces itself to that at last - to the very blankest Pessimism - the impression which Pater's epicureanism leaves on you is very much the same. [^CANC. TEXT: In the meantime^] "For there is a certain grief in things as they are, "in man as he has come to be, as he certainly is, over & above those "griefs of circumstance which are in a measure removable - an inexplicable "shortcoming or misadventure on the part of nature itself - "death and old age as it must needs be, and that watching of their "approach, which makes every stage of life like a dying over & over "again" - No there is no "secret of cheerfulness" in Pater. Excuse my boring you in this perfectly unnecessary way with these most trite & obvious reflections; I suppose certain lucky people [^CANC. TEXT: don't^] aren't so constantly conscious of the general futility of things. And indeed I am not remarkably depressed to-night, but I never really escape from a depressing theory. The value of contact with children is chiefly I think that it enables you at least for a time to consider with a sort of mellow melancholy what you would otherwise do with extreme bitterness & acrimony. But I am really exceeding even my own usual long winded-ness. Forgive me & write soon. always yours ED. [} [\96. To Arthur Moore\] }] Monday [\[?31 March 1890]\] Woodford (\Mon bien Cher\) My rheum, possibly through the cadaverous atmosphere of that "billard", assumed such proportions - but proportions! on Saturday night, that ever since I have been captive to it here. It is slightly better to-night; or, at least, I shall consider it so; and return to my Docks to-morrow; and to Poland. I fear however, that I shall hardly face the Aeolian Corner. So you must write, (\mon Vieux\), and explain your intentions. I may go to Brighton, from Good Friday to the Monday: The

Octave of Blessed John Lubbock is rather a depressing season, in London; but nothing is fixed as yet. I have been reading Virgil and Browning, to-day, I have found some superb mottoes in the 6th Aeneis to hang some melancholy modern sonnets on: when I can write them! As for Browning! (\Mon cher\) - if our Henry, if Turgu‚nef, if Bourget had written their masterpieces in verse they would have been like that. The subtility, the tact of omission, the Morbidezza! "My Last Duchess", (\par exemple\), is pure Henry James. I must have read it a dozen times before to-day: but I have only just appreciated the full subtilty of it. It is wonderful. Talking of morbidezza by the way - and Browning reeks of it - , what a stupid cant this is, of the Philistines, & Saintsburys: the sanity of genius! and the joyousness of the great literature! Fudge! Virgil is easily the master of melancholy sound. Shakespere and his Sonnets! Montaigne & MoliŠre! The XVIIIth Cent has a complacency of demeanour which is merely good breeding: Johnson & Swift & Sterne let the cat out of the bag. And as for now, the two people considered, I suppose, sanest, Browning and Meredith, - ! - What an absurdity! As for Pater & Newman - the two greatest men of the century, surely? I doubt if even British suburban criticism could discover much health or sanity in them!.... Yes: I shall probably go to Brighton: (\cura ut scribas\), anyhow. Friday, Sunday, Monday, the doors of Poland will be shut & you will be on the river - or playing poker, and I shall have no resources. I am grievously indisposed: mind & body. When will this long, long winter end? I want the summer & "Ploumariel", with the advantage of your society. In the meantime, let me subscribe myself Yours ERNEST DOWSON [} [\97. To Arthur Moore\] }] [\[8 April 1890]\] [\[Bridge Dock]\] (\Caro Mio\) When come you back? I wanted to write & try & persuade you to escape the clutches of Thomas on Wed. & come with me to the (\pr‚miŠre\)

of "April Showers" for wh: H Williams (now at Bournemouth) has sent tickets. But your whereabouts was doubtful & so I arranged to go with the 1st man I met (Hillier of Worcester & the New York Herald). I suppose application to you would however have been futile. Can you dine with me somewhere on Thursday? Afterwards we might slack or break up early as I shall have had rather a plethora of Theatre - I do definitely at last do the Garrick show with my mama on Wed evening. So Thursday or Friday at your pleasure, but one of them I prithee. (\La chŠre petite\) has been shut up with a cold lately - but yesterday I was taken up to see her & sat with her for some time in an upper chamber while she had her dinner. The patron came & "drank wine" with me (a quaint brand of Port) - & portraits of Ad‚laide in various periods of infancy were exhibited. It was quite a charming episode & cheered me mightily. (\Du reste\) everything is extremely pink altho' the domestic atmosphere is I am glad to say clear again. Hoping to see you soon yrs FLEUR D'ENNUI. P.S. I see Miss Annie Hughes was married yesterday to one Devereaux. "(\Mon Dieu\)", as Bouthors is fond of exclaiming "(\comme les hommes et les femmes sont bˆtes\)". [} [\98. To Arthur Moore\] }] Friday [\[16 May 1890]\] Bridge Dock (\Cher Notaire.\) As you say it is a sanguinary world. If it had not been so I would have written to tell you. I have been dining with Bouthors also with a French journalist & his (\maitresse\) taking a week's (\cong‚\) in this land of eternal night. Otherwise nothing - save a glimpse every now & then of Smith or Berridge. I regret the (\aratrum\) but do not much

believe in it. I will perhaps call in on you to-night "(\alle sei\)" (6) In any case let us meet somewhere to-morrow. Send me a card to the "Arts & Letters" with a rendez-vous. My governor is in bed with gout & rheumatism & I am consequently very much tied to this very pink basin. I have done nothing to the "Stolen Hand" & have written nothing else not even a letter for an aeon. Because like the respectable Queen of Sheba there is no longer any spirit left in me - Let us meet soon & do some good round cursing together. Yours ED [} [\99. To Arthur Moore\] }] Monday [\[19 May 1890]\] Bridge Dock (\Mon bon.\) (\Grammercy le votre.\) I purposed a letter last night but exceeding great slumber intervened. So I will even answer yours now - an empty Dock, the closeness of the atmosphere & the absence of the paternal relative per gout - all conduce to it. I supposed you were bathing on Saturday afternoon. I had several "fortunate hours". W Herbert (not the critical Ischariot but the actor) sent me 2 stallocks for what transpires to be the last matin‚e of Nixie and I duly repaired there in company with (\notre petite Polonaise\). She seemed to like the play which (\bien entendu\) is a werry poor one. "Nixie" is a clever child enough but not as pretty either as Mignon or my little Missy herself. She looked very sweet & charming, though I confess the superior smartness in which she appeared for the occasion did not commend itself to me so much as the familiar black pinafore. We intend to have some similar excursions on future occasions. Let us say Thursday for dinner. Very likely though I shall see you to-night at the Corner. Digby & Long are perusing as you say. (\Du moins je l'espŠre.\) I did not go to Macmurdo's Swarry on Saturday. Plarr meant to be there though. I wonder if he met your sister. We go

to Cambridge on Saturday next. I was staying in the Wood till yesterday afternoon. You should turn up at No 9 some Sunday. There was quite a formidable tea party there yesterday - Mayhew the brother in law of Berridge who digs with Samuel now is an excellent man. He has the Thomastic way of sitting perpetually on the music stool & playing snatches of (\op‚rette\) - Gilbert & Sullivan, Sultan of Mocha etc. He also sings extremely well, and - praise the gods - has no "comic" songs. Congratulations on your wins. But systems, (\mon cher\), are precarious things. "(\J'ai vu ‡a, moi!\)" (\Au revoir\) - till this evening. Yours (\in sec. seclm\) ED. [} [\100. To Arthur Moore\] }] Sunday [\[1 June 1890]\] Woodford (\Mon cher.\) Has this weary old world been too much for you? Was it a razor, or the braces & door peg or how? Or is it the social function which conceals you from our view - and how long shall these things be. In the meantime I break to you gently etc, etc..... It is back again with the usual formula of regrets & thanks. It has the appearance of being read - the dirty editorial thumb mark - Now you shall have it & cart it round for a while. Write to me soon I prithee. I am wasting away slowly with a cold & a graveyard cough - superadded to the profoundest ennui. Plarr was down with me on Thursday & after dinner we sat & smoked for some hours hatlessly on the balcony. (\Hinc illae lacrimae.\) This damp June Sunday is also extremely disspiriting. I wish I was not so sensitive to the influence of the weather. My ooflessness is such that I can't buy books even now & my shelves make me weep spleen when I consider how long it will be before they contain (i) Appreciations (ii) the complete works of Newman (iii) Gibbon - his Histories (iv) Morley's 18th Century Studies. (\Eheu!\) I

have been lolling over Poe's "Valueless Verse" this afternoon. My latest Valueless Villanelle I enclose you. It has been sent to "Atalanta" & I await its return with a philosophic resignation which I would I could muster equally where my prose is in question. Plarr has some pretty versicles coming out there, of a little girl playing a violin - a Polonaise! (My mother is exasperating me at the present moment [^CANC. TEXT: by^] with reminiscences of Dijon - Macon - Amiens & other unattainable places which oughtn't to be mentioned in Woodford. (\Tace!\)) I went with Victor P the other night to the United Democratic in Chancery Lane. The room (done by William Morris) was excellent - the people very bad & blatant - Morrison Davison all that but amusing because he was drunk. On the whole I don't know that democratic rant doesn't irritate almost as much as the conservative bigotry of the city ship-owner. What is the reason of the intolerable vulgarity of the present day - at least in England? I am beginning to think it must be chiefly the effect of Protestantism. Let's blow up the City and the City Tabernacle. Even when people make an effort to make the hoardings a little less hideous - as in this matter of the Zaeo atrocity - they do it from such ridiculous motives that reasonable persons can't sympathize with them - I have just had supper & am a trifle less spleenful in consequence. Nevertheless things are generally pink. Will you be able to come here next week or will you prefer a dinner and Ad‚laide? I don't mean of course that you couldn't have a dinner here - but here there is no Adelaide. Write & inform me of these things for I feel as if I should never again be robust enough to beard the piercing draughts of L.I.F. I am now going to hunt for something to read. Here are olives and Burgundy. Let me get down "Marius" always yours ERNEST DOWSON [} [\101. To Arthur Moore\] }] Sunday [\[8 June 1890]\] Woodford (\Carissimo.\) You missed a Symposium last night after all - Bouthors, Smith, & another man named Smith all turning up. (\Du reste\) the evening passed without incident worth noting & I left Tweedy for the wood of the Evangelist soon after midnight. I told you methinks in our too, too brief interview that an idea had come to me for our new Besant & Rice pudding. It is not particularly good or particularly original but it may do. It will be pommade I am afraid, this novel - but it is that is it not which the many headed Beast demands? I propose to take our old friend the self-sacrificing lover of romantic fiction, ditto the weak good looking, backboneless, egotistical, shallow successful lover of - ditto the charming girl & work out their history with a sort of (\m‚lange\) of romantic realism in the way of Norris. Nothing much of an idea there you will remark. Let me proceed - & for the sake of explicity call our personages for the time being - Andrew - Alphonse & Dorothy. Andrew (\aet\) 38, both lungs gone, in love with Dorothy but lets concealment prey on his damask cheek etc; of Alphonse his friend he has not a very high opinion but as Dorothy is in love with him & he knows nothing very damaging about him he doesn't actively oppose their marriage. When they marry which happens in 1st Vol. his entire object in life is to promote her happiness which is of course variously threatened. In several minor ways he is successful when behold a crisis occurs. An old flame of Alphonse's, a girl of the people whom he has seduced turns up ? with a child & threatens exposure. Tremendous ructions occur which culminate in a strong scene between Alphonse, Andrew, Dorothy & the Frail one (or better perhaps the Frail one's revengeful lover - she herself being dead) in which as a last chance of [^CANC. TEXT: keep^] propping up Mrs Alphonse's happiness & her faith in her husband Andrew takes the affair on his own shoulders and declares that it was he & not the actual guilty party who ruined the girl. The result of which is of course that Mrs Alphonse in her revulsion from suspecting her husband altogether repudiates Andrew & shuts her door on him. The estrangement might be final, Andrew of course dying soon after or be cleared up at his death - as we should decide in discussion. Crudely stated the above is my idea: melo of course & rather violent but the sort of stuff which takes in this country & might be shaded in a good deal beside. I have a good many minor people & episodes in my head as well which I will

give you shortly & no doubt you will add some more. The chief point of course & the idea which I started from is this voluntary blackening of his own reputation by Andrew. It is for you to decide if we can start upon it & if it is practicable & not too risqu‚ a situation. My conception of Andrew is a rather ironical person whose devotion to the girl is not suspected by any other of the dramatis personae & only revealed allusively to the reader - who is considered generally too cold blooded an individual & too much a persifleur to be capable of a grande passion. Alphonse is of course a plausible blackguard who arrives - (cf Bel Ami) & Dorothy our old friend the (\jeune fille\) of a million vaudevilles, loved of the British public - but not very dear to me. The seduced maiden Nancy might be a model, Alphonse being an artist - or possibly Andrew might be in some commercial occupation, be manager of works, or a dry docker & Nancy his foreman's daughter? I should also like to weigh in rather strongly with her child (Minnie Terry x Nixie x xyzý) and an old confidante of Andrews Lady Lowndes who knows him better than other people. If we placed as I suggested Andrew in a Dry Dock & Alphonse in a Studio it would have the further advantage that we could divide the work easily & both weigh in somewhat heavily with our personal impressions & our actual acquaintance. Give this your careful consideration & report on it at your early conve. I will try & look in on you to-morrow. If I don't see you then - write at once as I am engaged on Tuesd. & Wed. evenings. Perhaps you could dine & spend Sat to Monday next here & talk it over? Do if you can. However [^GREEK CHARS.^] I am delighted with the sudden lifting of the spell of sterility which occurred on Friday but fear it will not last. Anyhow I hope to have my story, now in hand, finished early this week - I am going to call it, I think, "Fin de SiŠcle". Parts of it satisfy me more than most things I have done; parts I am afraid are exuberantly bad. It is simply a study of the incomplete (\amourette\) of a modern whose critical sense has rather outworn his powers of action - told in the autobiographical manner of both my printed stories. There is more psychological motive in it and less of "(\ficelle\)" which Bouthors objected to so in the "Diary". I am half afraid however that the average editor is less tolerant of morbid psychology than of artistically indefensible misdirected letters. Well I will even wind up this protracted scrawl now I go to make a rough synopsis of our new "substitute for Thackeray". Let us call it, (\par exemple\) - what? "For Dorothy"? (Pommadish) Device - "A Covenant of Service"? - Wages. ? (be content with your wages), "The Uttermost Farthing". But no matter. The people are already beginning to become real to me; may the become so to you to. [^the: SIC EDN^] (\Au revoir\) Thine ED

[} [\102. To Arthur Moore\] }] [\[10 or 11 June 1890]\] Bridge Dock (\Mon cher Collaborateur\), "The World's Wages". (?). I just send you a LINE! to inform you of a new minor personage whom you might work into your synopsis - Conceiving of our hero as an artistic "stung for lifeur" - with a good deal of talent, of an arrivable quality, who arrives at academic renown by backstair influence - let us bring in as a foil - an irreconcileable - entirely disreputable artistic genius, refusing to adapt himself in any way either in art or life to convention: He might eventually die of excessive absinthe drinking & general disgust at the (\bˆtise\) of a public which boycotts his oeuvre & buys Chomondley's pretty little (\ineptiae\). & his friend the hero should previously have calmly appropriated some idea or picture of his & have toned it down into a flamboyant success. Rainham knows of this but for Dorothy's sake hushes it up - & ? - persuades the injured artist to allow What-is His-Name to take the picture. (They must be artists I think). The (\r‚volt‚\) - call him Oswin for the moment - I conceive as a violent & rather venomous person with however (\de bons mouvements\) - & I should suggest that he foregoes his purpose of exposing Chomondley (he must have a better name than that by the bye) - from a semi-cynical aesthetic appreciation of Rainham's devotion to Dorothy - who however had better not be Dorothy. Or Oswin himself might have a sort of uncouth affection for Dorothy too? - On the whole I think the first notion the best. This is one development since I saw you last. 2=nd= The two artists - with some other artistic & Bohemian types might meet in the early part of the book in a Soho restaurant based on Poland - Chomondley however introduced by Rainham to his old friend Lady Lowndes is taken up by Society & turns a cold shoulder on Bohemia & especially on Oswin to whom of course he is under large obligations. 3=rd= [^CANC. TEXT: in vol III^] previous to the marriage Rainham having a vague suspicion that Chomondley is mixed up with the disappearance of Olga Nethersole remonstrates with him & is assured that it was merely a slight flirtation which has been finished a long time since. and 4=thly= he might in the 3=rd= vol. discover the whole thing & be brought face to face with the Nethersole by picking up her child lost or strayed & restoring her to her mother. 5th I should say that the best d‚nouement & the most artistic - would be the discovery by Dorothy after Rainham's death & just at the zenith of her husband's successful career (as e.g. on his being made a baronet by a government sensible of the claims of art - ) of the actual state of

the case & of the part which Rainham has played in her life. So - you see, the ironical idea at the bottom of the whole plot - would be clearly brought out at the end - & actually the pathos of Rainham's sacrifice would be only heightened by the suggestion left of its futility. That is about all I have to say I think now. I hope to get your synopsis at any rate [^CANC. TEXT: before^] by Saturday & then will make a start somewhere at any rate. I am more taken with the novel than I was at first I must say. And I think conceivably we may work it out in a less pommadish spirit than I feared. The chief difficulty which presents itself to me now is as to the manner in which our heroine (Dorothy - Daisy - Mabel - Valentine - Violet - Iseult - Mildred - yes, why not Mildred?) - is to be introduced. Has Rainham known her since she was a child & does he introduce Chomondley to her? - Or does [^CANC. TEXT: has^] Chomondley met her in Switzerland & does he bring Rainham to see her? Or is she a prot‚g‚e of Lady Lowndes who wants to help her to go on the stage & does Rainham send C. to Lady L & then regret it because her Ladyship match-makes the marriage which from the first he rather dreads? - And again shall Rainham be a wharfinger or shall he also be in some artistic genre - or a man of leisure? And who is Olga to be if not the daughter of Rainham's manager? Or would it be better to make her Chomondley's model? Or would that wound the artistic sensibilities of your circle too much? - Well write soon. & mind you send me some more incidents & more characters. At present they stand in my mind subject to your approval as follows, (the names of course quite temporary). Andrew Rainham (a wharfinger). Laurence Chomondley - an artist. Mr Oswin - a painter with a French tradition painting masterpieces of brutality in the intervals of drunkenness for 2/6 a piece. Lady Lowndes, a grass widow with a bohemian-aesthetic salon in Brook St - Mrs Tressider & Mildred, her daughter. Bessie - a deceived maiden. Stubbins her lighterman avenger with an eye to blackmail. Enough for the present: it should be a great book always yrs ERNEST DOWSON [} [\103. To Arthur Moore\] }] Tuesday [\[17 June 1890]\] Bridge Dock (\Ch‚ri.\) Shall expect you as soon after 6. as you can arrive. Have been struggling at Chap I. Shall probably not be in town myself - but (\sans doute\) you know your way by this time & there are trains galore. Yrs ED

[} [\104. To Arthur Moore\] }] Saturday evening [\[21 June 1890]\] Arts and Letters Club Dear Collaborator. Enclosed is the synopsis of "Masquerade" which is I think fairly complete. At least it represents some 8 hours solid manual labour. But I hope you will be able to emend it & expand it somewhat. It should be about that length I fancy, but as you will note, two or three chapters at least I have put down in great brevity & don't quite know how they will be filled up. The drowning episode as you will see I have omitted but it could be worked in if you think it would be best without materially altering the synopsis. The arrangement especially in the order of the first half dozen chapters is of course quite arbitrary & we must arrange at our next meeting what order to follow - besides having to make some distribution of the writing. The only new development is the character of Charles Sylvester. That, I think has the advantage of supplying a necessary sub plot which is besides subservient to & directly tending to the development of the main plot as arranged. The d‚nouement I am inclined to think should be pretty much as it is. The title "Masquerade" I am really beginning to be somewhat keen on: as also of the general idea of the novel. Of course a great deal more than I have suggested may be made out of Col. Lightmark. Oswyn you see in my synopsis has become an important character: also Mary Masters whose name, if it has not been used is entirely good - in fact the only name which really pleases me. For the present we had better stick to Rainham - though I don't altogether care for Laurence. Write as soon as you get this & have digested the synopsis - which please return with your emendments. [^CANC. TEXT: I will^] My address after Monday will be c/o Mrs Baker The Cedars Ramsbury. nr Hungerford. However if possible I will try & see you on Monday. I have already made a start on Chap I - & will put my whole energy into the work after this week. Mind & write always yrs ERNEST DOWSON

[} [\105. To Arthur Moore\] }] [\[25 June 1890]\] The Cedars, Ramsbury, Hungerford (\Ch‚ri Collaborateur.\) Having half an hour on my hands after lunch I can hardly employ it better than in sending you a line & entreating you to write to me - soon - soon. This is a charming place & the weather is glorious but - I have an acute attack of nostalgia & I pine for the draughts of L.I.F and the delights of Sherwood St. Your letter will cheer me. At the bottom of the lawn here, runs the Kenneth in which I have been spinning for trout with minnows all the morning - unsuccessfully so far. But it appears to be chock full of them. I am now going to be driven over to Marlbro'. Let me know how your chap. proceeds & what you think of no I. At present I have done no more & may not till I return as I am chiefly out of doors. Also I require an inspiration other than trout and strawberries. You missed seeing a picture on Monday. My little (\Frauleinchen\) was quite too adorable in her pinkest pinafore, & a complexion of milk & roses. I hope to be back on Sat. perhaps I shall see you. Mind & Write yrs ever ERNEST DOWSON [} [\106. To Arthur Moore\] }] Friday [\[27 June 1890]\] Ramsbury (\Mon cher\) - Thanks many for your letter. I hope very much we may meet to-morrow & arrange a little the order of writing in the subsequent chapters. I have not been able to do anything more but will go away at it on my return. I shall leave Hungerford to-morrow at 1.40 & be at Paddington at 3.50. Could you meet the train & then when I have disembarassed myself of my impediments we could tea somewhere. Otherwise I will try & be at the Arts & Letters & shall expect you soon after 5.0. No more now. Very pleased with Stanhopes frescoes in Marlbro' Coll. Chapel. yrs ever ERNEST DOWSON

[} [\107. To Arthur Moore\] }] Tuesday night [\[1 July 1890]\] Arts and Letters Club (\Mon cher.\) I got the novel all right. It's really excellent - notably chap II, & the Colonel in Chap III. I am not sure whether I would not have preferred Eve a little more (\ing‚nue\) somewhat more "Pansy" (Portrait of a Lady), but that is of course only personal predilection. She is admirably described. The rain kept me away from you to-night. Also my severe physical disabilities consequent on having sat up the whole of last night with Lionel Johnson. An extraordinary man who improves on acquaintance. I cant get on very well with Chap IV. Oswyn is a crux. Shall I see you on Thursday. I shall be staying in the Wood all this week. No more now. I am dead with sleepiness. (\tout … toi\) ERNEST DOWSON

[} [\108. Postcard to Arthur Moore\] }] Tuesday [\[Postmark 8 July 1890]\] Bridge Dock I waited some time at the Corner yesterday but I suppose you had gone. To-day I shall be moving down to Woodford again & Wed & Thursday are I fear unavailable. Can you possibly manage a dinner on Friday? - when I hope to be able to bring you anot installment. Try & work it if you can as I am very full of engagements for the next ten days & may not be in town on Saturday. Let me know of the date of your d‚but. I shall try to be there of course. I was not damaged save by mud & bruises on Sat. I waited till nearly 4, & then drove away &

changed. Awfully sorry I have not managed to catch you for so long. (\Au revoir.\) (\T … T.\) ED Will write. I fear I must abandon Chap iv. Can you have a try at it?

[} [\109. To Arthur Moore\] }] Friday (thank the gods) [\[18 July 1890]\] Bridge Dock (\Mon cher Coquelin.\) (\Sch”nes wetter!\) Absolutely the slackest day on record here. For half an hour I have been vainly trying to proceed with the (\roman\). But they would not. In despair I will commence an epistle to you. I am going to have a try at Chap vi or vii - (I haven't the syllabub here) in which Rainham calls on the Sylvesters. But this sort of climate is against composition. I have finally arranged in (default of your company) to proceed in about a fortnight's time with one A. C. Hillier, of whom I have spoken to St Malo viƒ Southampton, thence to Dol & Rennes - & thence on foot anywhither as the mood may seize us. That is to say I have decided to do that & Hillier has almost agreed to come to. I now await his final decision. If he fails me - can't you possibly manage it? It will cost extremely little & the return fare from London to St Malo is only 40/- My people are all such wrecks that they absolutely decline to go out of reach of an English doctor. They will probably be on the Broads again - or else on the Thames somewhere. I go to a better land - & the only regret which enters into my departure is that - unless you are haply at the 11th hour persuaded - you don't go with me. Think of the notes we might make. Think of it - & dont go to Oulton which is really a very pink little place. - If you are in town to-morrow come & see me at the "A & L". I shall be there from 3 on till about 4.30. From 2 till 3 in Poland. If I don't see you then [^CANC. TEXT: or on^] write me a Sunday special & console me for this evilest weather that I know. Yrs ever ERNEST DOWSON PS. Happy thought! Would the rabbit come think you to Britainy with us? Shall I write? -

[} [\110. To Arthur Moore\] }] [\[? late July 1890]\] Arts and Letters Club Dear Moore. No signs of the Rabbit so far. Shall be in Poland if you will look in there here up till about 8.45. Will be here again at 9.0. But come to Poland if possible. Have left a note for him (the Brer Rab) if he calls. (P.T.O.) saying much the same. Yrs in haste ED PS. Should you by any chance see Smith or Davies while calling here please be diplomatic. Keep my movements between now & 9.0 dark. (I have nominally gone to Paddington) & on no account bring either with you to (\Pologne\) - as I should obviously be convicted of culpable misrepresentation of my movements.