1n6xZiV

234 J A M E S [ 1906-1907 ]hopeless blackguard," ' and " 'When he left, which he did later in theday (to catch a train) the conversation resumed its usual course &c." 'Gissing's books reminded him of 'pastefazoi' (noodles and beans), aTriestine dish. 53George Moore's The Lake he found amusing, mainly because a leadingcharacter had the name of Father Oliver Gogarty. i think that mayeither have been laughingly suggested by O. St Jesus for his greater glory',Joyce wrote Stanislaus on September 18, 'or hawk-eyedly intended byMoore to put O. St Jesus in an embarras.' He mocked its symbolism onAugust 31:You know the plot. She writes long letters to Father Oliver Gogarty aboutWagner and the Ring and Bayreuth (memories of my youth!) and aboutItaly where everyone is so happy (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and where they drink nicewine and not that horrid black porter (O poor Lady Ardilaun over whoselily-like hand he lingered some years back): and then she goes (in all sensesof the word) with a literary man named Ellis—one of Moore's literarymen, you can imagine what, silent second cousin of that terribly knowingfellow, Harding—and Father Oliver Gogarty goes out to the lake to plungein by moonlight, before which the moon shines opportunely on 'firm erectframe and grey buttocks': and on the steamer he reflects that every manhas a lake in his heart and must ungird his loins for the crossing. Prefacewritten in French to a French friend who cannot read or write English(intelligent artist, however, no doubt) * and George Moore, out of GeorgeHenry Moore and a Ballyglass lady, explains that he only does it 'because,cher ami (dear friend), you cannot read me in my own language' Eh? 54When Stanislaus, to whom he had sent the book, contended that the lastpart was well done, Joyce asked, 'Yerra, what's good in the end of TheLake? I see nothing.' 55But this rejection did not keep him from makinguse of the book later. He remembered the ending when he came to writethe visionary scene at the end of the fourth chapter of A Portrait of theArtist as a Young Man; there Stephen, like Father Gogarty, undergoes arite of secular baptism, and Joyce's water and bird imagery, while he hasmade it altogether his own, seems to owe something to Moore's symbolismof lake, stagnant pool, and flutteringcurlew. Joyce winnowed Mooreof the preposterous; he found him a good man to improve upon.Whenever Joyce read a review in the English newspapers that suggestedthat a writer was doing the same sort of thing he was, he orderedthe book. So he sent for Arthur Morrison's Tales of Mean Streets, butsoon put it indifferently aside. Having heard that a classmate of his at theUniversity, Seamus O'Kelly, had just published a group of stories calledBy the Stream of Killmeen, he obtained the book through his Aunt Josephinebut quickly commented:* Joyce remembered this preface when he presented Moore later with a copy of Ulysses,but in French translation; see p. 618.