It is when we come to such novels as "The Lake" and "The Brook Kerith"
that we discover Mr. Moore at his greatest. Zola is forgotten and only
the strength of Mr. Moore himself is now displayed. "The Lake" is
among the most beautiful stories of our time, a finely-conceived and
finely-wrought book, more complete and unified than "The Brook Kerith,"
which, in spite of much beauty and scholarship, is marred organically
by a dispersal of the interest. The latter novel is in three sections,
the first dealing with Joseph of Arimathea, the second with Jesus, and
the third with Paul. Each of these sections by itself is well and even
superbly done, although in my judgment, the first of them is much the
best of the three; but the interest which the reader has in any one
of the three sections is not felt in the whole book because the three
great figures are not grouped together. We begin with Joseph and then,
at the point when we are absorbed in him, are hurried on to Jesus,
undergoing a similar experience with Him when we are hurried off to
Paul. The book is not a closely-knit drama in which the characters
constantly act and re-act upon each other, but is more akin to three
separate plays in which certain figures recur in greater or less
positions. Mr. Moore, in short, was uncertain whether to make Joseph
or Jesus or Paul the hero of his story, and he unwisely compromised
by making each of them hero for a portion of it, with the result
that each is of supreme importance for a third of the book and of
subordinate importance for the remainder of it. "The Brook Kerith" is,
nevertheless, a considerable achievement and is in itself sufficient to
secure a high place in English letters for its author.
The legend is that Mr. Moore is a trifler with life, a man without
purpose, immensely egotistical, having some of the simplicity of the
buffoon. The truth is that he is an audacious, exceedingly adroit and
utterly unthwartable artist who bends the visible world to his purpose
of discovering and perfecting a formula of words with which to express
his vision of the invisible world. He has, indeed, a simplicity of
character, but it is not the simplicity of the buffoon: it is the
immense and dissolving simplicity of the man of genius.