Page:Ulysses, 1922.djvu/681

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678

misery: the aged impotent disfranchised ratesupported moribund lunatic pauper.


With which attendant indignities?

The unsympathetic indifference of previously amiable females, the contempt of muscular males, the acceptance of fragments of bread, the simulated ignorance of casual acquaintances, the latration of illegitimate unlicensed vagabond dogs, the infantile discharge of decomposed vegetable missiles, worth little or nothing, nothing or less than nothing.


By what could such a situation be precluded?

By decease (change of state), by departure (change of place).


Which preferably?

The latter, by the line of least resistance.


What considerations rendered it not entirely undesirable?

Constant cohabitation impeding mutual toleration of personal defects. The habit of independent purchase increasingly cultivated. The necessity to counteract by impermanent sojourn the permanence of arrest.


What considerations rendered it not irrational?

The parties concerned, uniting, had increased and multiplied, which being done, offspring produced and educed to maturity, the parties, if not disunited were obliged to reunite, for increase and multiplication which was absurd, to form by reunion the original couple of uniting parties, which was impossible.


What considerations rendered it desirable?

The attractive character of certain localities in Ireland and abroad, as represented in general geographical maps of polychrome design or in special ordnance survey charts by employment of scale numerals and hachures.


In Ireland?

The cliffs of Moher, the windy wilds of Connemara, lough Neagh with submerged petrified city, the Giant’s Causeway, Fort Camden and Fort Carlisle, the Golden Vale of Tiperrary, the islands of Aran, the pastures of royal Meath, Brigid’s elm in Kildare, the Queen’s Island shipyard in Belfast, the Salmon Leap, the lakes of Killarney.