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Ulysses 

250 

of

 1305 

O’Molloy offered his case to Myles Crawford. Lenehan lit 

their cigarettes as before and took his trophy, saying: 

—Muchibus thankibus. 

A MAN OF HIGH MORALE 

—Professor Magennis was speaking to me about you, J. 

J. O’Molloy said to Stephen. What do you think really of 

that hermetic crowd, the opal hush poets: A. E. the 

mastermystic? That Blavatsky woman started it. She was a 

nice old bag of tricks. A. E. has been telling some yankee 

interviewer that you came to him in the small hours of the 

morning to ask him about planes of consciousness. 

Magennis thinks you must have been pulling A. E.’s leg. 

He is a man of the very highest morale, Magennis. 

Speaking about me. What did he say? What did he say? 

What did he say about me? Don’t ask. 

—No, thanks, professor MacHugh said, waving the 

cigarettecase aside. Wait a moment. Let me say one thing. 

The finest display of oratory I ever heard was a speech 

made by John F Taylor at the college historical society. Mr 

Justice Fitzgibbon, the present lord justice of appeal, had 

spoken and the paper under debate was an essay (new for 

those days), advocating the revival of the Irish tongue. 

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He turned towards Myles Crawford and said: 

—You know Gerald Fitzgibbon. Then you can 

imagine the style of his discourse. 

—He is sitting with Tim Healy, J. J. O’Molloy said, 

rumour has it, on the Trinity college estates commission. 

—He is sitting with a sweet thing, Myles Crawford 

said, in a child’s frock. Go on. Well? 

—It was the speech, mark you, the professor said, of a 

finished orator, full of courteous haughtiness and pouring 

in chastened diction I will not say the vials of his wrath 

but pouring the proud man’s contumely upon the new 

movement. It was then a new movement. We were weak, 

therefore worthless. 

He closed his long thin lips an instant but, eager to be 

on, raised an outspanned hand to his spectacles and, with 

trembling thumb and ringfinger touching lightly the black 

rims, steadied them to a new focus. 

IMPROMPTU 

In ferial tone he addressed J. J. O’Molloy: 

—Taylor had come there, you must know, from a 

sickbed. That he had prepared his speech I do not believe 

for there was not even one shorthandwriter in the hall. 

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His dark lean face had a growth of shaggy beard round it. 

He wore a loose white silk neckcloth and altogether he 

looked (though he was not) a dying man. 

His gaze turned at once but slowly from J. J. 

O’Molloy’s towards Stephen’s face and then bent at once 

to the ground, seeking. His unglazed linen collar appeared 

behind his bent head, soiled by his withering hair. Still 

seeking, he said: 

—When Fitzgibbon’s speech had ended John F Taylor 

rose to reply. Briefly, as well as I can bring them to mind, 

his words were these. 

He raised his head firmly. His eyes bethought 

themselves once more. Witless shellfish swam in the gross 

lenses to and fro, seeking outlet. 

He began: 

—Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: Great was my 

admiration in listening to the remarks addressed to the youth of 

Ireland a moment since by my learned friend. It seemed to me 

that I had been transported into a country far away from this 

country, into an age remote from this age, that I stood in ancient 

Egypt and that I was listening to the speech of some highpriest of 

that land addressed to the youthful Moses. 

His listeners held their cigarettes poised to hear, their 

smokes ascending in frail stalks that flowered with his 

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speech.  And let our crooked smokes. Noble words coming. 

Look out. Could you try your hand at it yourself? 

—And it seemed to me that I heard the voice of that Egyptian 

highpriest raised in a tone of like haughtiness and like pride. I 

heard his words and their meaning was revealed to me. 

FROM THE FATHERS 

It was revealed to me that those things are good which 

yet are corrupted which neither if they were supremely 

good nor unless they were good could be corrupted. Ah, 

curse you! That’s saint Augustine. 

—Why will you jews not accept our culture, our religion and 

our language? You are a tribe of nomad herdsmen: we are a 

mighty people. You have no cities nor no wealth: our cities are 

hives of humanity and our galleys, trireme and quadrireme, laden 

with all manner merchandise furrow the waters of the known 

globe. You have but emerged from primitive conditions: we have a 

literature, a priesthood, an agelong history and a polity. 

Nile. 

Child, man, effigy. 

By the Nilebank the babemaries kneel, cradle of 

bulrushes: a man supple in combat: stonehorned, 

stonebearded, heart of stone. 

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—You pray to a local and obscure idol: our temples, majestic 

and mysterious, are the abodes of Isis and Osiris, of Horus and 

Ammon Ra. Yours serfdom, awe and humbleness: ours thunder 

and the seas. Israel is weak and few are her children: Egypt is an 

host and terrible are her arms. Vagrants and daylabourers are you 

called: the world trembles at our name. 

A dumb belch of hunger cleft his speech. He lifted his 

voice above it boldly: 

—But, ladies and gentlemen, had the youthful Moses listened 

to and accepted that view of life, had he bowed his head and 

bowed his will and bowed his spirit before that arrogant 

admonition he would never have brought the chosen people out of 

their house of bondage, nor followed the pillar of the cloud by 

day. He would never have spoken with the Eternal amid 

lightnings on Sinai’s mountaintop nor ever have come down with 

the light of inspiration shining in his countenance and bearing in 

his arms the tables of the law, graven in the language of the 

outlaw. 

He ceased and looked at them, enjoying a silence. 

OMINOUS—FOR HIM! 

J. J. O’Molloy said not without regret: 

—And yet he died without having entered the land of 

promise. 

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