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644 / A M E S [ 1929-1932 ]though we are all very different, he could perhaps define it. It is a greatconsolation to me to have such a good son. His grandfather was very fondof him and kept his photograph beside mine on the mantelpiece.I knew he was old. But I thought he would live longer. It is not hisdeath that crushed me so much but self-accusation. 159The 'extravagant licentious disposition' was something James always cherished,and much of his seemingly irrational spending and drinking justifieditself to him as a way of holding the source of his talent inviolate.Joyce asked Alfred Bergan, his father's oldest friend, to take charge ofsetting up a monument; Bergan informed him that John Joyce had expressedthe wish ('in the curious roundabout delicate and allusive way hehad in spite of all his loud elaborate curses,' Joyce commented) 160 thathis wife's name as well as his own should be engraved on his tombstone,so their son wrote the simple inscription:INLOVING MEMORYOFJOHN STANISLAUS JOYCEOF CORK,BORN 4TH JULY 1849DIED 29TH DECEMBER 1931AND OF HIS WIFEMARY JANEOF DUBLINBORN 15TH MAY 1859DIED 13TH AUGUST 1903*John Joyce kept his word and made James his sole heir. Surprisinglyenough there was a little property,! and in any case the gesture was notempty.'Poor foolish man!' Joyce wrote Miss Weaver, it seems to me his voicehas somehow got into my body or throat. Lately, more than ever—especiallywhen I sigh.' 161Appalled by his own dolorousness, he offered LouisGillet a new calendar of weekdays: 'Moansday, Tearsday, Wailsday,Thumpsday, Frightday, Shatterday.' + 162All his friends tried to comfort* In searching for another form of memorial, Joyce thought he had hit on a good one inthe form of a public bench at the end of Claude Road on the Whitworth Road. He wrotehis brother on January 22, 1934, that he intended having this erected anonymously.'Only Paris seems to understand that John Citizen wants to sit down at times withoutpaying for his seat in the open street.' It was also a tribute to his father's many years ofsitting around. Nothing came of the idea.t John Joyce's effects amounted to £665/9/0, as his will at the Public Record Office inDublin reveals.t Joyce recounted at length to Gillet the story of an old Blasket Islander who crossed overto the mainland and found there in a bazaar a small mirror. He had never seen such anobject before, and bought it. Once he had it in his possession, he rowed back to the