Annotated Stephen Hero ch17.d
Jorn Barger
room on the second floor of a house in O'Connell St.
Sackville street wasn't renamed until 1924, so this may be O'Connell
avenue, one block west of #7 Eccles. (Below it will implied as near the
Pillar, though, so maybe it is Sackville?)
The class consisted of six young men and three young women.
Most activities like this were still sexually segregated, I believe.
The teacher was a young man in spectacles with a very
sick-looking face and a very crooked mouth. He spoke in a
high-pitched voice and with a cutting Northern accent.
Ellmann (citing Budgen) claims Patrick Pearse taught this course, but
this description mainly suggests Louis Walsh, Joyce's nemesis at UC.
He never lost an opportunity of sneering at seoninism
West Britonism
and at those who would not learn their native tongue.
He said that Beurla
English
was the language of commerce and Irish the speech of
the soul and he had two witticisms which always made his
class laugh. One was the 'Almighty Dollar' and the other was
the 'Spiritual Saxon'. Everyone regarded Mr Hughes as a great
enthusiast and some thought he had a great career before him
as an orator.
Walsh was called the 'boy orator'.
On Friday nights when there was a public
meeting of the League he often spoke but as he did not know
enough Irish he always excused himself at the beginning of
his speech for having to speak to the audience in the language
of the 'Spiritual Saxon'.
(Unlikely for Pearse?)
At the end of every speech he quoted
a piece of verse. He scoffed very much at Trinity College and
at the Irish Parliamentary Party. He could not regard as
patriots men who had taken oaths of allegiance to the Queen
of England and he could not regard as a national university an
institution which did not express the religious convictions of
the majority of the Irish people. His speeches were always
loudly applauded and Stephen heard some of the audience say
that they were sure he would be a great success at the bar.
On enquiry, Stephen found that Hughes, who was the son of a
Nationalist solicitor in Armagh, was a law-student at the
King's Inns.
Walsh and Pearse both studied law, but only Walsh was from the north.
The Irish class which Stephen attended was held in a very
sparely furnished room lit by a gasjet which had a broken
globe. Over the mantelpiece hung the picture of a priest with
a beard who, Stephen found, was Father O'Growney. It was a
beginners' class and its progress was retarded by the
stupidity of two of the young men. The others in the class
learned quickly and worked very hard. Stephen found it very
troublesome to pronounce the gutturals but he did the best he
could. The class was very serious and patriotic. The only
time Stephen found it inclined to levity was at the lesson
which introduced the word 'gradh.' The three young women
laughed and the two stupid young men laughed, finding
something very funny in the Irish word for 'love' or perhaps
in the notion itself. But Mr Hughes and the other three young
men and Stephen were all very grave. When the excitement of
the word had passed Stephen's attention was attracted to the
younger of the stupid young men who was still blushing
violently. His blush continued for such a long time that
Stephen began to feel nervous. The young man grew more and
more confused and what was worst was that he was making
all this confusion for himself for no-one in the class but
Stephen seemed to have noticed him. He continued so till the
end of the hour never once daring to raise his eyes from his
book and when he had occasion to use his handkerchief he did
so stealthily with his left hand.
(Is he secretly in love with one of the girls?)
The meetings on Friday nights were public and were largely
patronised by priests. The organisers brought in reports
from different districts and the priests made speeches of
exhortation.
This surprises me.
Two young men would then be called on for
songs in Irish and when it was time for the whole company to
break up all would rise and sing the Rallying-Song.
??? The to-be national anthem wasn't written yet.
The young
women would then begin to chatter while their cavaliers
helped them into their jackets. A very stout black-bearded
citizen who always wore a wideawake hat and a long bright
green muffler was a constant figure at these meetings.
This is 52yo Michael Cusack, of Cyclops fame. Pic:
http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/people/cusack.htm
When the company was going home he was usually to be seen
surrounded by a circle of young men who looked very meagre
about his bulk. He had the voice of an ox and he could be heard
at a great distance, criticising, denouncing and scoffing. His
circle was the separatist centre and in it reigned the
irreconcilable temper. It had its headquarters in Cooney's
tobacco-shop where the members sat every evening in the
'Divan' talking Irish loudly and smoking churchwardens. To
this circle Madden who was the captain of a club of
hurley-players reported the muscular condition of the young
irreconcilables under his charge and the editor of the weekly
journal of the irreconcilable party reported any signs of
Philocelticism which he had observed in the Paris
newspapers.
Maud Gonne was working the Paris end.
By all this society liberty was held to be the chief desirable;
the members of it were fierce democrats. The liberty they
desired for themselves was mainly a liberty of costume and
vocabulary: and Stephen could hardly understand how such a
poor scarecrow of liberty could bring serious human beings
to their knees in worship. As in the Daniels' household he had
seen people playing at being important so here he saw people
playing at being free. He saw that many political absurdities
arose from the lack of a just sense of comparison in public
men. The orators of this patriotic party were not ashamed to
cite the precedents of Switzerland and France. The intelligent
centres of the movement were so scantily supplied that the
analogies they gave out as exact and potent were really
analogies built haphazard on very inexact knowledge. The cry
of a solitary Frenchman (A bas l'Angleterre!) at a Celtic
re-union in Paris would be made by these enthusiasts the
subject of a leading article in which would be shown the
imminence of aid for Ireland from the French Government.
This must be exaggerated?
A glowing example was to be found for Ireland in the case of
Hungary, an example, as these patriots imagined, of a
long-suffering minority, entitled by every right of race and
justice to a separate freedom, finally emancipating itself. In
emulation of that achievement bodies of young Gaels
conflicted murderously in the Phoenix Park with whacking
hurley-sticks, thrice armed in their just quarrel since their
revolution had been blessed for them by the Anointed, and the
same bodies were set aflame with indignation by the
unwelcome presence of any young sceptic who was aware of
the capable aggressions of the Magyars upon the Latin and
Slav and Teutonic populations, greater than themselves in
number, which are politically allied to them,
Should be 'were'?
and of the potency of a single regiment of infantry to hold in
check a town of twenty thousand inhabitants.
Cf Eumeus: "Doctor Swift says one man in armour will beat ten men in
their shirts."
Stephen said one day to Madden:
-- I suppose these hurley-matches and walking tours are
preparations for the great event.
-- There is more going on in Ireland at present than you are
aware of.
-- But what use are camàns?
Hurley-sticks.
-- Well, you see, we want to raise the physique of the
country.
Stephen meditated for a moment and then he said:
-- It seems to me that the English Government is very good
to you in this matter.
-- How is that may I ask?
-- The English government will take you every summer in
batches to different militia camps, train you to the use of
modern weapons, drill you, feed you and pay you and then
send you home again when the manoeuvres are over.
-- Well?
-- Wouldn't that be better for your young men than
hurley-practice in the park?
-- Do you mean to say you want young Gaelic Leaguers to
wear the redcoat and take an oath of allegiance to the Queen
and take her shilling too?
-- Look at your friend, Hughes.
-- What about him?
-- One of these days he will be a barrister, a Q.C., perhaps a
judge-- and yet he sneers at the Parliamentary Party
because they take an oath of allegiance.
-- Law is law all the world over-- there must be someone to
administer it, particularly here, where the people have no
friends in Court.
-- Bullets are bullets, too. I do not quite follow the
distinction you make between administering English law and
administering English bullets: there is the same oath of
allegiance for both professions.
-- Anyhow it is better for a man to follow a line of life which
civilisation regards as humane. Better be a barrister than a
redcoat.
-- You consider the profession of arms a disreputable one.
Why then have you Sarsfield Clubs, Hugh O'Neill Clubs, Red
Hugh Clubs?
-- O, fighting for freedom is different. But it is quite another
matter to take service meanly under your tyrant, to make
yourself his slave.
-- And, tell me, how many of your Gaelic Leaguers are
studying for the Second Division and looking for advancement
in the Civil Service?
-- That's different. They are only civil servants: they're
not...
-- Civil be damned! They are pledged to the Government, and
paid by the Government.
-- O, well, of course if you like to look at it that way...
-- And how many relatives of Gaelic Leaguers are in the
police and the constabulary? Even I know nearly ten of your
friends who are sons of Police inspectors.
-- It is unfair to accuse a man because his father was
so-and-so. A son and a father often have different ideas.
-- But Irishmen are fond of boasting that they are true to the
traditions they receive in youth. How faithful all you fellows
are to Mother Church! Why would you not be as faithful to the
tradition of the helmet as to that of the tonsure?
-- We remain true to the Church because it is our national
Church, the Church our people have suffered for and would
suffer for again. The police are different. We look upon them
as aliens, traitors, oppressors of the people.
-- The old peasant down the country doesn't seem to be of
your opinion when he counts over his greasy notes and says
"I'll put the priest on Tom an' I'll put the polisman on Mickey."
(Is he choosing between these authorities to intimidate two different
personality types into paying debts?)
-- I suppose you heard that sentence in some 'stage-Irishman'
play. It's a libel on our countrymen.
-- No, no, it is Irish peasant wisdom: he balances the priest
against the polisman and a very nice balance it is for they
are both of good girth. A compensative system!
-- No West-Briton could speak worse of his countrymen. You
are simply giving vent to old stale libels-- the drunken
Irishman, the baboon-faced Irishman that we see in Punch.
British political cartoons did sometimes portray Irishmen as apes.
-- What I say I see about me. The publicans and the
pawnbrokers who live on the miseries of the people spend
part of the money they make in sending their sons and
daughters into religion to pray for them. One of your
professors in the Medical School who teaches you Sanitary
Science or Forensic Medicine or something-- God knows
what-- is at the same time the landlord of a whole streetful
of brothels not a mile away from where we are standing.
-- Who told you that?
-- A little robin-redbreast.
-- It's a lie!
-- Yes, it's a contradiction in terms, what I call a systematic
compensation.
Maybe: Dialectic demands that if he pretends to be excessively pure,
he'll inevitably compensate by becoming excessively impure?
Stephen's conversations with the patriots were not all of this
severe type. Every Friday evening he met Miss Clery, or, as
he had now returned to the Christian name, Emma. She lived
near Portobello
Costello says the house (described later) was Elizabeth Justice's.
and any evening that the meeting was over
early she walked home. She often delayed a long time
chatting with a low-sized young priest, a Father Moran, who
had a neat head of curly black hair and expressive black eyes.
This young priest was a pianist and sang sentimental songs
and was for many reasons a great favourite with the ladies.
Stephen often watched Emma and Father Moran. Father
Moran, who sang tenor, had once complimented Stephen
saying he had heard many people speak highly of his voice and
hoping he would have the pleasure of hearing him some time.
Stephen had said the same thing to the priest adding that Miss
Clery had told him great things of his voice. At this the
priest had smiled and looked archly at Stephen. "One must not
believe all the complimentary things the ladies say of us" he
had said. "The ladies are a little given to-- what shall I say--
fibbing, I am afraid." And here the priest had bit his lower
rosy lip with two little white even teeth and smiled with his
expressive eyes and altogether looked such a pleasant
tender-hearted vulgarian that Stephen felt inclined to slap
him on the back admiringly.
(More middleclass hypocrisy.)
Stephen had continued talking for
a few minutes and once when the conversation had touched on
Irish matters the priest had become very serious and had
said very piously "Ah, yes. God bless the work!" Father
Moran was no lover of the old severe style of music, he told
Stephen. Of course, he said, it is very grand music. But he
held the opinion that the Church must not be made too gloomy
and he said with a charming smile that the spirit of the
Church was not gloomy. He said that one could not expect the
people to take kindly to severe music and that the people
needed more human religious music than the Gregorian and
ended by advising Stephen to learn "The Holy City" by Adams.
(Also played on a gramophone across from Bella's in Circe.)
-- There is a song now, beautiful, full of lovely melody and
yet-- religious. It has the religious sentiment, a touching
melody, power-- soul, in fact.
Stephen watching this young priest and Emma together
usually worked himself into a state of unsettled rage. It was
not so much that he suffered personally as that the spectacle
seemed to him typical of Irish ineffectualness.
Unable to connect desire and action (cf Blake).
Often he felt his fingers itch. Father Moran's eyes were so clear
and tender-looking, Emma stood to his gaze in such a poise of bold
careless pride of the flesh that Stephen longed to precipitate the
two into each other's arms and shock the room even though he knew
the pain this impersonal generosity would cause himself.
So there's considerable jealousy in his rage.
Emma allowed him to see her home several
times but she did not seem to have reserved herself for him.
The youth was piqued at this for above all things he hated to
be compared with others
Very revealing.
and, had it not been that her body
seemed so compact of pleasure, he would have preferred to
have been ignominiously left behind. Her loud forced manners
shocked him at first until his mind had thoroughly mastered
the stupidity of hers. She criticised the Miss Daniels very
sharply, assuming, much to Stephen's discomfort, an identical
temper in him. She coquetted with knowledge, asking Stephen
could he not persuade the President of his College to admit
women to the college. Stephen told her to apply to McCann
who was the champion of women. She laughed at this and said
with genuine dismay "Well, honestly, isn't he a
dreadful-looking artist?"
Costello's description of Mary Cleary in later life fits this to a tee.
She treated femininely everything
that young men are supposed to regard as serious but she
made polite exception for Stephen himself and for the Gaelic
Revival. She asked him wasn't he reading a paper and what
was it on. She would give anything to go and hear him: she
was awfully fond of the theatre herself and a gypsy woman
had once read her hand and told her she would be an actress.
Maud Gonne in 1900 would organise the Daughters of Erin, offering acting
classes among others, so Emma might easily have ended up in one of
Yeats's plays if she'd tried.
She had been three times to the pantomime and asked Stephen
what he liked best in pantomime. Stephen said that he liked a
good clown but she said that she preferred ballets. Then she
wanted to know did he go out much to dances and pressed him
to join an Irish dancing-class of which she was a member.
Her eyes had begun to imitate the expression of Father
Moran's-- an expression of tender significance when the
conversation was at the lowest level of banality. Often as he
walked beside her Stephen wondered how she had employed
her time since he had last seen her and he congratulated
himself that he had caught an impression of her when she
was at her finest moment.
Many years before at the Xmas party (c1892).
In his heart he deplored the change
in her for he would have liked nothing so well as an adventure
with her now but he felt that even that warm ample body
could hardly compensate him for her distressing pertness
and middle-class affectations. In the centre of her attitude
towards him he thought he discerned a point of defiant illwill
and he thought he understood the cause of it. He had swept
the moment into his memory, the figure and the landscape
into his treasure-room, and conjuring with all three had
brought forth some pages of sorry verse.
Cf PoA2.
One rainy night
when the streets were too bad for walking she took the
Rathmines tram at the Pillar and as she held down her hand
to him from the step, thanking him for his kindness and
wishing him good-night, that episode of their childhood
seemed to magnetise the minds of both at the same instant.
The change of circumstances had reversed their positions,
giving her the upper hand. He took her hand caressingly,
caressing one after another the three lines on the back of her
kid glove and numbering her knuckles, caressing also his own
past towards which this inconsistent hater of inheritances
was always lenient.
Cf Shem in FW II.1, getting maudlin?
...Arty, reminiscensitive... dreaming largesse of lifesighs
over early lived offs... Remember thee, castle throwen?
Ones propsperups treed, now stohong baroque. And oil paint
use a pumme if yell trace me there title to where was a
hovel not a havel (the first rattle of his juniverse)... while
itch ish shome.
-- My God, alas, that dear olt tumtum home
Whereof in youthfood port I preyed
Amook the verdigrassy convict vallsall dazes.
And cloitered for amourmeant in thy boosome shede!
SH again:
They smiled at each other; and again in
the centre of her amiableness he discerned a point of illwill
and he suspected that by her code of honour she was obliged
to insist on the forbearance of the male and to despise him
for forbearing.
More Irish paralysis.
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