Would Mr. Moore
have thought that story any more incredible than the other?
Would he have thought it worse than a thousand other things that a
modern mystic may lawfully believe? Would he have risen to his feet
and told Mr. Yeats that all was over between them? Not a bit of it.
He would at least have listened with a serious, nay, a solemn face.
He would think it a grim little grotesque of rustic diablerie,
a quaint tale of goblins, neither less nor more improbable
than hundreds of psychic fantasies or farces for which there is
really a good deal of evidence. He would be ready to entertain
the idea if he found it anywhere except in the New Testament.
As for the more vulgar and universal fashions that have followed
after the Celtic movement, they have left such trifles far behind.
And they have been directed not by imaginative artists
like Mr. Yeats or even Mr. Moore, but by solid scientific
students like Sir William Crookes and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
I find it easier to imagine an evil spirit agitating the legs
of a pig than a good spirit agitating the legs of a table.
But I will not here enter into the argument, since I am only
trying to describe the atmosphere.
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