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5 98 J A M E S [ 1926-1929 ]As his best answer to his critics, Joyce was busy perfecting Anna LiviaPlurabelle for her third appearance, this time in transition. He was prepared,he said, 'to stake everything' 86on this section of his book. Withhis unfailing appetite for computation, he told Valery Larbaud it had costhim 1200 hours of work; and to Sisley Huddleston he remarked, 'Criticswho were most appreciative of Ulysses are complaining about my newwork. They cannot understand it. Therefore they say it is meaningless.Now if it were meaningless it could be written quickly, without thought,without pains, without erudition; but I assure you that these twenty pagesnow before us cost me twelve hundred hours and an enormous expenseof spirit.' 87On October 27, 1927, the chapter was triumphantly finished,88with three hundred and fifty river names incorporated in thetext. A few days later he read the piece to a group of about twenty-fivefriends, whose responses elated him.* MacLeish's letter was among themost delighted:Dear Mr. Joyce:I had not yesterday—nor have I today for that matter—words to tell youhow the pages you read us moved and excited me. This pure creation thatgoes almost beyond the power of the words you use is something I cannottalk about. But neither can I keep silence. This I am sure—that what youhave done is something even you can be proud to have written.Faithfully yoursArchibald MacLeish t 90The strain of this work had left him, Joyce said, 'literally doubled intwo from fatigue and cramp.' 92He was glad to receive a visit the followingmonth from John Francis Byrne, whom he had not seen since 1909.Byrne's appearance was distinguished, and Joyce was pleased with his oldfriend. He was also excited to learn that Cosgrave, the prototype of Lynch,had been found drowned in the Thames, 93a presumed fulfillment of* Max Eastman attacked Anna Livia Plurabelle when it was published, but granted it wasoften humorous. He met Joyce later, and Joyce told him he was glad Eastman had atleast enjoyed his humor: 'It would be terrible to think that I had done all that work andnot given you any pleasure at all. . . . For certainty the motive of an artist—of all artists,whether they are conscious of it or not—is to give pleasure to others.' Eastman said. 'Iam very much surprised to hear you say that.' 'But it is true, isn't it?' said Joyce. He thenremarked on his use of so many river names, and said he liked to think how some day,way off in Tibet or Somaliland, some boy or girl in reading that little book would bepleased to come upon the name of his or her home river. 89t MacLeish has written of Joyce: 'But then I never found Joyce warm. I liked him. Thelittle beard. The thick lenses. Like a very professional doctor—not a practicing one but aman about a hospital, rarely seen. I liked his shyness and his stiffness and the sense ofsomething vivid and maybe dangerous under it. I don't know what "greatness" in a manis though I think I know what it is in a man's work. But a great man! I've been close tosome accounted so but it was always the deeds or the work I felt—not a greatness in theman himself. But in Joyce you felt a hard, strong actuality that, if not greatness, was atleast something you were always conscious of.' 91