Moore, George: Reminiscences of the Impressionist painters (Dublin: Maunsel, 1906)

and I think it can be better conducted in a
cafe than in a university.” So I went to
Paris with a valet. It is necessary that I
should mention him, for a valet means con-
formity to certain conventions; and the young
man who sets out on artistic adventure must
try to separate himself from all conventions,
whether of politics, society, or creed.
My valet did not remain with me for more
than six or eight months, “ his continual sigh-
ing after beef, beer, and a wife, his incapacity
for learning a single word of a foreign lan-
guage—the beds he couldn’t sleep on, and the
wines he couldn’t drink ”—I forget how the
sentence runs on, it is Byron’s description of
his valet (I forget which one), should I say my
memory of Byron’s description of his valet ?
Be that as it may, the passage, I may remark,
occurs in one of his letters, and no doubt the
sentence closes, “ obliged me to send him back
to England.” That is what happened in my
case, and my valet’s dismissal was led up to by
circumstances precisely similar to those de-
scribed by Byron. But behind these material
reasons for getting rid of my valet there was a
deeper reason—his presence stood between me
and myself; I wished above all things to be
myself, and to be myself I felt I should have
to live the physical as well as the intellectual
life of the quarter. Myself was the goal I was
making for, instinctively if you will, but still
making for it ; I felt that I must think out
life for myself, and from end to end, and to do
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