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i 3 8 J A M E S [ 1903-1904 ]is a look of cruelty in his face. Not that he is not gentle at times, for hecan be kind and one is not surprised to find gentleness in him. (He isalways simple and open with those that are so with him.) But few peoplewill love him, I think, in spite of his graces and his genius and whosoeverexchanges kindnesses with him is likely to get the worst of the bargain. 33Joyce read what Stanislaus had written and commented only that 'moralcourage' did not describe him. 'When the Bard writes,' he said, lookingfor more esthetic language to describe his detached severity, 'he intellectualizeshimself.' 34The Bard had now no money and no immediate goal, and at the sametime, with his mother dead, no reason for doing nothing. He dressed inblack, a Hamlet without a wicked uncle, and as Mallarme had written(in a line Joyce liked), 'II se promene, pas plus, lisant au livre de luimeme."*He experienced sporadic bursts of energy, and in one of them,roused by the plight of some French sailors in North Africa, wrote a letterto the editor of, presumably, the Irish Times, to protest their mistreatment,t The plight of individuals trapped in the great schemes of othersalways aroused his sympathy, and he liked to show how thoroughly heunderstood the French situation by ironies addressed to a small circle ofthe equally informed.At the end of August 1903, Joyce went back to Longworth for more* This aspect of himself appears in the Stephen Dedalus of the beginning of Ulysses, whois rilled with ill-will and grief.t Joyce's letter, which was not published at the time but is included in The CriticalWritings of James Joyce, said in part:Empire building does not appear to be as successful in Northern, as it has beenin Southern Africa. While his cousins are astonishing the Parisian public by excursionsin the air M. Jacques Lebaudy, the new Emperor of the Sahara, is preparingto venture into the heavier and more hazardous atmosphere of the Palais. He hasbeen summoned to appear before M. Andre at the suit of two sailors, Jean MarieBourdiec and Joseph Cambrai, formerly of the Frosquetta. They claim 100,000 francsdamages on account of the hardships and diseases which they have contracted owingto M. Lebaudy's conduct. The new emperor, it would seem, is not over-careful ofthe bodily welfare of his subjects. He leaves them unprovided for in a desert, biddingthem wait until he returns. They are made captive by a party of natives and sufferthe agonies of hunger and thirst during their captivity. They remain prisoners fornearly two months and are finally rescued by a French man-o'-war under the commandof M. Jaures. One of them is subsequently an inmate of a hospital at theHavre and after a month's treatment there is still only convalescent. Their appealsfor redress have been all disregarded and now they are having recourse to law. . . .The hearing of a case, in which such singular issues are involved, will doubtlessdivide the attention of the Parisians with such comparatively minor topics as Rejaneand les petits oiseaux.(James A. Joyce7 S. Peter's TerraceCabra, Dublin) 35In the Cyclops episode of Ulysses (329 [427]), there is similar sympathy for British sailors.