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[ Aetat. 23 ] J O Y C E 203hell of a lot of self-stultification to enter into the mood which producessuch a verdict that I am afraid I am not equal to the task. After all, it isonly Skeffington, and fellows like him, who think woman is man's equal.Cosgrave, too, said I would never make anything of her, but it seems tome that in many points in which Cosgrave and I are deficient she doesnot require any making at all. I have certainly submitted myself more toher than I have ever done to anybody and I do not believe I would havebegun this letter but that she encouraged me. Her effect on me has so farbeen to destroy (or rather to weaken) a great part of my natural cheerfulnessand irresponsibility but I don't think this effect would be lasting inother circumstances. With one entire side of my nature she has no sympathyand will never have any and yet once, when we were both passingthrough an evening of horrible melancholy, she quoted (or rather misquoted)a poem of mine which begins 'O, sweetheart, hear you your lover'stale.' That made me think for the first time in nine months that I was agenuine poet. Sometimes she is very happy and cheerful and I, who growless and less romantic, do not desire any such ending for our love-affair asa douche in the Serpentine. At the same time I want to avoid as far as ishumanly possible any such apparition in our lives as that abominable spectrewhich Aunt Josephine calls 'mutual tolerance.' In fact, now that I am wellon in my letter I feel full of hope again and, it seems to me, that if wecan both allow for each other's temperaments, we may live happily. Butthis present absurd life is no longer possible for either of us. . . .1 oftenthink to myself that, in spite of the seeming acuteness of my writing, Imay fail in life through being too ingenuous, and certainly I made a mistakein thinking that, with an Irish friendship [Byrne] aiding me, I couldcarry through my general indictment or survey of the island successfully.The very degrading and unsatisfactory nature of my exile angers me and Ido not see why I should continue to drag it out with a view to returning'some day' with money in my pocket and convincing the men of lettersthat, after all, I was a person of talent. 18What he had to propose was as usual meticulously detailed and ludicrouslyimpractical: the following April, he, Nora, the expected child,and Stanislaus would take a small cottage in the Dublin suburbs.* InAugust of this year he would begin sending Stanislaus a part of his salary,and Stanislaus would put aside part of his. During their communal life,which they could try out for a year, James would keep up his share ofthe expenses by selling stories and poems. He could not anticipate Stanislaus'sreaction, he said, but assumed that the atmosphere of the 'supposititiouscottage' 19could be no more unpleasant for him than that oftheir father's house. The scheme expressed his dissatisfaction with his lifein Trieste, if it did nothing else. He admitted also to a longing for a sliceof boiled leg of mutton with turnips and carrots, and said that Nora*'A roseschelle cottage by the sea for nothing for ever.' Finnegans Wake (179). Bloomalso wishes 'to purchase by probate treaty in fee simple a thatched bungalowshaped 2storey dwellinghouse of southerlv aspect, surmounted by vane and lightning conductor.. . .' Ulysses (712 [837-8]).