Thursday, December 29, 2005

James Joyce's Scribbledehobble:

The revelation of thought takes men out of servitude into freedom.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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From James Joyces Ulysses:

He began to scribble on a slip of paper.

Take some slips from the counter going out.

–Those who are married, Mr Best, douce herald, said, all save one, shall live. The rest shall keep as they are.

He laughed, unmarried, at Eglinton Johannes, of arts a bachelor.

Unwed, unfancied, ware of wiles, they fingerponder nightly each his variorum edition of THE TAMING OF THE SHREW.

–You are a delusion, said roundly John Eglinton to Stephen. You have brought us all this way to show us a French triangle. Do you believe your own theory?

–No, Stephen said promptly.

–Are you going to write it? Mr Best asked. You ought to make it a dialogue, don't you know, like the Platonic dialogues Wilde wrote.

John Eclecticon doubly smiled.

–Well, in that case, he said, I don't see why you should expect payment for it since you don't believe it yourself. Dowden believes there is some mystery in HAMLET but will say no more. Herr Bleibtreu, the man Piper met in Berlin, who is working up that Rutland theory, believes that the secret is hidden in the Stratford monument. He is going to visit the present duke, Piper says, and prove to him that his ancestor wrote the plays. It will come as a surprise to his grace. But he believes his theory.

I believe, O Lord, help my unbelief. That is, help me to believe or help me to unbelieve? Who helps to believe? EGOMEN. Who to unbelieve? Other chap.

–You are the only contributor to DANA who asks for pieces of silver. Then I don't know about the next number. Fred Ryan wants space for an article on economics.

Fraidrine. Two pieces of silver he lent me. Tide you over. Economics.

–For a guinea, Stephen said, you can publish this interview.

Buck Mulligan stood up from his laughing scribbling, laughing: and then gravely said, honeying malice:

–I called upon the bard Kinch at his summer residence in upper Mecklenburgh street and found him deep in the study of the SUMMA CONTRA GENTILES in the company of two gonorrheal ladies, Fresh Nelly and Rosalie, the coalquay whore.

He broke away

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