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614 / A M E S [ 1020-10J2 ]had not yet determined. 14The firstwas to be written by Harry Crosby,the rich, sun-dazzled young man who, with his wife (nee Polly, butrechristened Caresse), was publishing books. Their Black Sun Press, 'thefoal of Necessity, out of Desire' (as Caresse Crosby called it), had beenfounded in Paris in 1927. From an uncle, Harry Crosby had received ahuge illustrated copy of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and Joyce tookthis into consideration, rather than Crosby's claim of being a sun-worshipper,in delegating to his American friend the difficulties of Finnegan'snight. The Crosbys also threw themselves into the project whichwas now the aim of all private presses, to publish an excerpt from Workin Progress. They implored Eugene and Maria Jolas to ask Joyce for afragment; he was willing enough, and arranged with them for Tales Toldof Shem and Shaun, to include 'The Mookse and the Gripes,' 'The MuddestThick that Ever was Dumped,' and 'The Ondt and the Gracehoper.'They suggested to Joyce that someone write an introduction. He proposedJulian Huxley and J. W. N. Sullivan; when the scientist and the musicologistmade excuses, he then proposed C. K. Ogden, rightly surmisingthat the co-author of The Meaning of Meaning and the inventor of BasicEnglish would not resist an invitation to discuss this linguistic experiment.He wished also for Ogden to comment, as a mathematician, uponthe structure of Finnegans Wake, which he insisted was mathematical. 15If Ogden had refused, Ford Madox Ford was to have been asked, butOgden accepted, and later was to translate Anna Livia Plurabelle intoBasic, and to arrange for Joyce to record that fragment for the OrthologicalInstitute.Harry and Caresse Crosby wished also to print as a frontispiece to theirbook a portrait of Joyce. The firstthought was for Picasso, who provedhowever entirely indifferent to Joyce, in part perhaps because Joyce didnot belong to Gertrude Stein's company; at any rate, he said he neverdid portraits sur commande. 16 The next choice was Brancusi, who agreedand did several sketches of Joyce. The two men got on well together,both 'deploring,' Joyce wrote Miss Weaver, 'modern feminine fashions,the speed of modern trains etc etc.' 17Mrs. Crosby thought the sketch,when completed, looked like Joyce but not like a Brancusi, and askedif he could not do something more abstract. He had, he said, a 'Symbolof Joyce' which might be what she wanted. It was a curleycue intended,as Brancusi said later, 18to express the 'sens du pousser which he foundin Joyce; the sense of enigmatic involution is also conveyed. Joyce wasamused and wrote to Miss Weaver that the design would attract somecustomers, 'But I wish he or Antheil, say, could or would be as explicitas I try to be when people ask me: And what's this here, Guvnor?' 19When Brancusi's sketch was shown to John Joyce in Dublin, he remarkedgravely, 'The boy seems to have changed a good deal.' 20Joyce kept the Crosbys in a state of controlled fury by endlessly revisingthe proofs, heaping more and more epithets upon the fabled mookse,