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When The Short Days Of Winter Came, Dusk Fell Before We Had Well Eaten Our Dinners. When We Met In The Street The Houses Had Grown Sombre. The Space Of Sky Above Us Was The Colour Of Ever-changing Violet And Towards It The Lamps Of The Street Lifted Their Feeble Lanterns. The Cold Air Stung Us And We Played Till Our Bodies Glowed. Our Shouts Echoed In The Silent Street.

-James Joyce

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When The Short Days

James Joyce

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When The Short Days Of Winter Came, Dusk Fell Before We Had Well Eaten Our Dinners. When We Met In The Street The Houses Had Grown Sombre. The Space Of Sky Above Us Was The Colour Of Ever-changing Violet And Towards It The Lamps Of The Street Lifted Their Feeble Lanterns. The Cold Air Stung Us And We Played Till Our Bodies Glowed. Our Shouts Echoed In The Silent Street.

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The Swift December Dusk Had Come Tumbling Clownishly After Its Dull Day And, As He Stared Through The Dull Square Of The Window Of The Schoolroom, He Felt His Belly Crave For Its Food. He Hoped There Would Be Stew For Dinner, Turnips And Carrots And Bruised Potatoes And Fat Mutton Pieces To Be Ladled Out In Thick Peppered Flourfattened Sauce. Stuff It Into You, His Belly Counselled Him.

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It Soared, A Bird, It Held Its Flight, A Swift Pure Cry, Soar Silver Orb It Leaped Serene, Speeding, Sustained, To Come, Don't Spin It Out Too Long Long Breath He Breath Long Life, Soaring High, High Resplendent, Aflame, Crowned, High In The Effulgence Symbolistic, High, Of The Ethereal Bosom, High, Of The High Vast Irradiation Everywhere All Soaring All Around About The All, The Endlessnessnessness.

The Voices Blend And Fuse In Clouded Silence: Silence That Is Infinite Of Space: And Swiftly, Silently The Sound Is Wafted Over Regions Of Cycles Of Cycles Of Generations That Have Lived.

Her Name Sprang To My Lips At Moments In Strange Prayers And Praises Which I Myself Did Not Understand. My Eyes Were Often Full Of Tears (i Could Not Tell Why) And At Times A Flood From My Heart Seemed To Pour Itself Out Into My Bosom. I Thought Little Of The Future. I Did Not Know Whether I Would Ever Speak To Her Or Not Or, If I Spoke To Her, How I Could Tell Her Of My Confused Adoration.

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Every Night As I Gazed Up At The Window I Said Softly To Myself The Word Paralysis. It Had Always Sounded Strangely In My Ears, Like The Word Gnomon In The Euclid And The Word Simony In The Catechism. But Now It Sounded To Me Like The Name Of Some Maleficent And Sinful Being. It Filled Me With Fear, And Yet I Longed To Be Nearer To It And To Look Upon Its Deadly Work.

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I Care Not If I Live But A Day And A Night, So Long As My Deeds Live After Me.

He Thought That He Was Sick In His Heart If You Could Be Sick In That Place.

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There Is No Heresy Or No Philosophy Which Is So Abhorrent To The Church As A Human Being.

And Yet Her Name Was Like A Summons To All My Foolish Blood.

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Frequent And Violent Temptations Were A Proof That The Citadel Of The Soul Had Not Fallen And That The Devil Raged To Make It Fall.

As I Am. As I Am. All Or Not At All.

The Artist, Like The God Of The Creation, Remains Within Or Behind Or Beyond Or Above His Handiwork, Invisible, Refined Out Of Existence, Indifferent, Paring His Fingernails.

A Certain Pride, A Certain Awe, Withheld Him From Offering To God Even One Prayer At Night, Though He Knew It Was In God's Power To Take Away His Life While He Slept And Hurl His Soul Hellward Ere He Could Beg For Mercy.

The Mocker Is Never Taken Seriously When He Is Most Serious.

The Sacred Pint Alone Can Unbind The Tongue.

In This Life Our Sorrows Are Either Not Very Long Or Not Very Great Because Nature Either Overcomes Them By Habits Or Puts An End To Them By Sinking Under Their Weight. But In Hell The Torments Cannot Be Overcome By Habit, For While They Are Of Terrible Intensity They Are At The Same Time Of Continual Variety, Each Pain, So To Speak, Taking Fire From Another And Re-endowing That Which Has Enkindled It With A Still Fiercer Flame.

I Am Proud To Be An Emotionalist.

I Shall Write A Book Some Day About The Appropriateness Of Names. Geoffrey Chaucer Has A Ribald Ring, As Is Proper And Correct, And Alexander Pope Was Inevitably Alexander Pope. Colley Cibber Was A Silly Little Man Without Much Elegance And Shelley Was Very Percy And Very Bysshe.

The Heaventree Of Stars Hung With Humid Nightblue Fruit.

Your Battles Inspired Me - Not The Obvious Material Battles But Those That Were Fought And Won Behind Your Forehead.

She Respected Her Husband In The Same Way As She Respected The General Post Office, As Something Large, Secure And Fixed: And Though She Knew The Small Number Of His Talents She Appreciated His Abstract Value As A Male.

The Light Music Of Whiskey Falling Into Glasses Made An Agreeable Interlude.

Why Is It That Words Like These Seem Dull And Cold? Is It Because There Is No Word Tender Enough To Be Your Name?

The Personality Of The Artist, At First A Cry Or A Cadence Or A Mood And Then A Fluid, And Lambent Narrative, Finally Refines Itself Out Of Existence, Impersonalises Itself, So To Speak. The Aesthetic Image In The Dramatic Form Is Life Purified In And Reprojected From The Human Imagination. The Mystery Of Aesthetic Like That Of Material Creation Is Accomplished. The Artist, Like The God Of The Creation, Remains Within Or Behind Or Beyond Or Above His Handiwork, Invisible, Refined Out Of Existence, Indifferent, Paring His Fingernails.

Thought Is The Thought Of Thought.

Sentimentality Is Unearned Emotion.

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Oh Ireland My First And Only Love Where Christ And Caesar Are Hand In Glove!

But We Are Living In A Sceptical And, If I May Use The Phrase, A Thought-tormented Age: And Sometimes I Fear That This New Generation, Educated Or Hyper-educated As It Is, Will Lack Those Qualities Of Humanity, Of Hospitality, Of Kindly Humour Which Belonged To An Older Day.

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Once Upon A Time

Does Nobody Understand?

The Object Of The Artist Is The Creation Of The Beautiful. What The Beautiful Is Is Another Question.

I See The Regions Of Snow And Ice, I See The Sharp-eyed Samoiede And The Finn, I See The Seal-seeker In His Boat Poising His Lance, I See The Siberian On His Slight-built Sledge Drawn By Dogs, I See The Porpoise-hunters, I See The Whale-crews Of The South Pacific And The North Atlantic, I See The Cliffs, Glaciers, Torrents, Valleys Of Switzerland - I Mark The Long Winters And The Isolation.

All Things Are Inconstant Except The Faith In The Soul, Which Changes All Things And Fills Their Inconstancy With Light.

When The Soul Of A Man Is Born In This Country There Are Nets Flown At It To Hold It Back From Flight.

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Mr. Duffy Lived A Short Distance From His Body.

Each Lost Soul Will Be A Hell Unto Itself, The Boundless Fire Raging In Its Very Vitals.

What Was After The Universe? Nothing. But Was There Anything Round The Universe To Show Where It Stopped Before The Nothing Place Began?

When The Irishman Is Found Outside Of Ireland In Another Environment, He Very Often Becomes A Respected Man. The Economic And Intellectual Conditions That Prevail In His Own Country Do Not Permit The Development Of Individuality. No One Who Has Any Self-respect Stays In Ireland, But Flees Afar As Though From A Country That Has Undergone The Visitation Of An Angered Jove.

I Am Quite Content To Go Down To Posterity As A Scissors And Paste Man For That Seems To Me A Harsh But Not Unjust Description

Lord, Heap Miseries Upon Us Yet Entwine Our Arts With Laughters Low.

Like The Tender Fires Of Stars Moments Of Their Life Together, That No One Knew Of Or Would Ever Know Of, Broke Upon And Illuminated His Memory.

The Artist... Standing In The Position Of Mediator Between The World Of His Experience And The World Of His Dreams - 'a Mediator, Consequently Gifted With Twin Faculties, A Selective Faculty And A Reproductive Faculty.' To Equate These Faculties Was The Secret Of Artistic Success.

Let Us Leave Theories There And Return To Here's Hear.

Away! Away! The Spell Of Arms And Voices: The White Arms Of Roads, Their Promise Of Close Embraces And The Black Arms Of Tall Ships That Stand Against The Moon, Their Tale Of Distant Nations. They Are Held Out To Say: We Are Alone. Come. And The Voices Say With Them: We Are Your Kinsmen. And The Air Is Thick With Their Company As They Call To Me, Their Kinsman, Making Ready To Go, Shaking The Wings Of Their Exultant And Terrible Youth... Welcome, O Life! I Go To Encounter For The Millionth Time The Reality Of Experience And To Forge In The Smithy Of My Soul The Uncreated Conscience Of My Race.

In Woman's Womb Word Is Made Flesh But In The Spirit Of The Maker All Flesh That Passes Becomes The Word That Shall Not Pass Away. This Is The Postcreation.

The Studious Silence Of The Library ... Thought Is The Thought Of Thought. Tranquil Brightness.

Any Object, Intensely Regarded, May Be A Gate Of Access To The Incorruptible Eons Of The Gods.

You Cannot Eat Your Cake And Have It.

Have Your Cake And Eat It Too

Theologians Consider That It Was The Sin Of Pride, The Sinful Thought Conceived In An Instant: Non Serviam: I Will Not Serve. That Instant Was His [lucifer's] Ruin.

We Were Always Loyal To Lost Causes...success For Us Is The Death Of The Intellect And Of The Imagination. ~ Professor Machugh

Gentle Lady, Do Not Sing Sad Songs About The End Of Love; Lay Aside Sadness And Sing How Love That Passes Is Enough. Sing About The Long Deep Sleep Of Lovers That Are Dead, And How In The Grave All Love Shall Sleep: Love Is Aweary Now.

Quotation Marks Quotato Marks! Bah!

Quotation Marks

Poetry, Even When Apparently Most Fantastic, Is Always A Revolt Against Artifice, A Revolt, In A Sense, Against Actuality. It Speaks Of What Seems Fantastic And Unreal To Those Who Have Lost The Simple Intuitions Which Are The Test Of Reality; And, As It Is Often Found At War With Its Age, So It Makes No Account Of History, Which Is Fabled By The Daughters Of Memory.

Her Image Had Passed Into His Soul For Ever And No Word Had Broken The Holy Silence Of His Ecstasy. Her Eyes Had Called Him And His Soul Had Leaped At The Call. To Live, To Err, To Fall, To Triumph, To Recreate Life Out Of Life! A Wild Angel Had Appeared To Him, The Angel Of Mortal Youth And Beauty, An Envoy From The Fair Courts Of Life, To Throw Open Before Him In An Instant Of Ecstasy The Gates Of All The Ways Of Error And Glory. On And On And On And On!

The Supreme Question About A Work Of Art Is Out Of How Deep A Life Does It Spring. Paintings Of Moreau Are Paintings Of Ideas. The Deepest Poetry Of Shelley, The Words Of Hamlet Bring Our Mind Into Contact With The Eternal Wisdom; Plato's World Of Ideas. All The Rest Is The Speculation Of Schoolboys For Schoolboys.

Terence O'ryan Heard Him And Straightway Brought Him A Crystal Cup Full Of The Foaming Ebon Ale Which The Noble Twin Brothers Bungiveagh And Bungardilaun Brew Ever In Their Divine Alevats, Cunning As The Sons Of Deathless Leda. For They Garner The Succulent Berries Of The Hop And Mass And Sift And Bruise And Brew Them And They Mix Therewith Sour Juices And Bring The Must To The Sacred Fire And Cease Not Night Or Day From Their Toil, Those Cunning Brothers, Lords Of The Vat.

I Am A Worker, A Tombstone Mason, Anxious To Pleace Averyburies And Jully Glad When Christmas Comes His Once Ayear.

Redheaded Women Buck Like Goats.

Save The Trees Of Ireland For The Future Men Of Ireland On The Fair Hills Of Eire, O.

His Heart Danced Upon Her Movement Like A Cork Upon A Tide.

Shaw's Works Make Me Admire The Magnificent Tolerance And Broadmindedness Of The English.

I Could Call My Wandering Thoughts Together. I Had Hardly Any Patience With The Serious Work Of Life Which, Now That It Stood Between Me And My Desire, Seemed To Me Child's Play, Ugly Monotonous Child's Play.

You Behold In Me, Stephen Said With Grim Displeasure, A Horrible Example Of Free Thought.

To Discover The Mode Of Life Or Of Art Whereby My Spirit Could Express Itself In Unfettered Freedom.

I Fear Those Big Words, Stephen Said, Which Make Us So Unhappy.

He Lived At A Little Distance From His Body, Regarding His Own Acts With Doubtful Side-glances. He Had An Odd Autobiographical Habit Which Led Him To Compose In His Mind From Time To Time A Short Sentence About Himself Containing A Subject In The Third Person And A Verb In The Past Tense.

You Made Me Confess The Fears That I Have. But I Will Tell You Also What I Do Not Fear. I Do Not Fear To Be Alone Or To Be Spurned For Another Or To Leave Whatever I Have To Leave. And I Am Not Afraid To Make A Mistake, Even A Great Mistake, A Lifelong Mistake And Perhaps As Long As Eternity Too.

Some People Believe That We Go On Living In Another Body After Death, That We Lived Before. They Call It Reincarnation. That We All Lived Before On The Earth Thousands Of Years Ago Or On Some Other Planet. They Say We Have Forgotten It. Some Say They Remember Their Past Lives.

Though Their Life Was Modest, They Believed In Eating Well.

Nations Have Their Ego, Just Like Individuals.

All Moanday, Tearday, Wailsday, Thumpsday, Frightday, Shatterday.

But My Body Was Like A Harp And Her Words And Gestures Were Like Fingers Running Upon The Wires.

All Human History Moves Towards One Great Goal

Imagine Some Foul And Putrid Corpse That Has Lain Rotting And Decomposing In The Grave, A Jelly-like Mass Of Liquid Corruption. Imagine Such A Corpse A Prey To Flames, Devoured By The Fire Of Burning Brimstone And Giving Off Dense Choking Fumes Of Nauseous Loathsome Decomposition. And Then Imagine This Sickening Stench, Multiplied A Millionfold And A Millionfold Again From The Millions Upon Millions Of Fetid Carcasses Massed Together In The Reeking Darkness, A Huge And Rotting Human Fungus. Imagine All This, And You Will Have Some Idea Of The Horror Of The Stench Of Hell.

He Found In The World Without As Actual What Was In His World Within As Possible.

The Supreme Question About A Work Of Art Is Out Of How Deep A Life Does It Spring.

Time's Ruins Build Eternity's Mansions.

Jesus Was A Bachelor And Never Lived With A Woman. Surely Living With A Woman Is One Of The Most Difficult Things A Man Has To Do, And He Never Did It.

What Is Better Than To Sit At The End Of The Day And Drink Wine With Friends, Or Substitutes For Friends?

The End Of The Day

Stephen Jerked His Thumb Towards The Window, Saying: — That Is God. Hooray! Ay! Whrrwhee! — What? Mr Deasy Asked. — A Shout In The Street, Stephen Answered, Shrugging His Shoulders.

A Man Of Genius Makes No Mistakes; His Errors Are Volitional And Are The Portals Of Discovery.

He Comes Into The World God Knows How, Walks On The Water, Gets Out Of His Grave And Goes Up Off The Hill Of Howth. What Drivel Is This?

He Could Not Feel Her Near Him In The Darkness Nor Hear Her Voice Touch His Ear. He Waited For Some Minutes Listening. He Could Hear Nothing: The Night Was Perfectly Silent. He Listened Again: Perfectly Silent. He Felt That He Was Alone.

Satan, Really, Is The Romantic Youth Of Jesus Re-appearing For A Moment.

I'll Tickle His Catastrophe.

Fall If You Will, But Rise You Must.

Sometimes He Caught Himself Listening To The Sound Of His Own Voice. He Thought That In Her Eyes He Would Ascent To An Angelical Stature; And, As He Attached The Fervent Nature Of His Companion More And More Closely To Him, He Heard The Strange Impersonal Voice Which He Recognised As His Own, Insisting On The Soul's Incurable Lonliness. We Cannot Give Ourselves, It Said: We Are Our Own.

The Mouth Can Be Better Engaged Than With A Cylinder Of Rank Weed.

When One Reads These Strange Pages Of One Long Gone One Feels That One Is At One With One Who Once.

If The Irish Programme Did Not Insist On The Irish Language I Suppose I Could Call Myself A Nationalist. As It Is, I Am Content Torecognize Myself An Exile: And, Prophetically, A Repudiated One.

Mistakes Are The Portals Of Discovery.

I Have Left My Book, I Have Left My Room, For I Heard You Singing Through The Gloom.

Very Gratefully, With Grateful Appreciation, With Sincere Appreciative Gratitude, In Appreciatively Grateful Sincerity Of Regret, He Declined.

Thanks Be To God We Lived So Long And Did So Much Good.

Every Bond Is A Bond To Sorrow.

It Was Cold Autumn Weather, But In Spite Of The Cold They Wandered Up And Down The Roads Of The Park For Nearly Three Hours. They Agreed To Break Off Their Intercourse; Every Bond, He Said, Is A Bond To Sorrow.

His Eyes Were Dimmed With Tears And, Looking Humbly Up To Heaven, He Wept For The Innocence He Had Lost.

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