ch14d

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That evening at dinner Mr Fulham was in genial spirits and began to address his conversation pointedly to Stephen. Mr Fulham's method of 'drawing' his interlocutor was not a very delicate method but Stephen saw what was expected of him and merely waited till he was directly addressed. A neighbour had come to dinner, a Mr Heffernan. Mr Heffernan was not at all of his host's way of thinking and therefore the evening brought out some lively disputes. Mr Heffernan's son was learning Irish because he believed that the Irish people should speak their own language and not the language of their conquerors.


plenty of Heffernans in Westmeath but none knew Irish [1901]


— But the people of the United States who are more emancipated than Ireland is ever likely to be are content to speak English, said Mr Fulham.



— The Americans are different. They have no language to revive.



— For my part I am content with my conquerors.



— Because you occupy a good position under them. You are not a labourer. You enjoy the fruits of Nationalist agitation.



— Perhaps you are going to tell me that all men are equal, said Mr Fulham satirically.



— In a sense they may be.



— Nonsense, my dear sir. Our countrymen know nothing of the Reformation, as they call it, and I hope they will know nothing of the French Revolution either.



Mr Heffernan returned to the charge.



— But surely it is no harm for them to know something about their country — its traditions, its local history, its language!



— For those who have leisure it may be good. But you know I am a great enemy of disloyal movements. Our lot is thrown in with England.



— The young generation is not of your opinion. My son, Pat, is studying in Clonliffe at present and he tells me all the young students there, those who are to be our priests afterwards, have these ideas.


Clonliffe = Holy Cross College [map] [wiki]

— The Catholic Church, my dear sir, will never incite to rebellion. But here is one of the young generation. Let him speak.



— I care nothing for these principles of nationalism, said Stephen. I have enough bodily liberty.



— But do you feel no duty to your mother-country, no love for her? asked Mr Heffernan.



— Honestly, I don't.



— You live then like an animal without reason! exclaimed Mr Heffernan.



— My own mind, answered Stephen, is more interesting to me than the entire country.



— Perhaps you think your mind is more important than Ireland!



— I do, certainly.



— These are strange ideas of your godson's, Mr Fulham. May I ask did the Jesuits teach you them.



— The Jesuits taught me other things, reading and writing.



— And religion also?



— Naturally. 'What doth it profit a man to gain the whole world if he lose his soul?'



— Nothing, of course. That is quite so. But humanity has claims on us. We have a duty to our neighbour. We have received a commandment of charity.



— I hear so, said Stephen, at Christmas. Mr Fulham laughed at this and Mr Heffernan was stung.



— I may not have read as much as you, Mr Fulham, or even as much as you, young man, but I believe that the noblest love a man can have, of course after the love of God, is love of his native land.



— Jesus was not of your opinion, Mr Heffernan, said Stephen.



— You speak very boldly, young man, said Mr Heffernan reprovingly.



— I am not afraid to speak openly, answered Stephen, even of the parish priest.



— You use the Holy Name glibly for one so young.



— Not in execration. I mean what I say. The ideal presented to mankind by Jesus is one of self-denial, of purity, and of solitude; the ideal you present to us is one of revenge, of passion and of immersion in worldly affairs.



— It seems to me that Stephen is right, said Miss Howard.



— I can see, said Mr Fulham, what these movements tend to.



— It is impossible for us all to live the lives of hermits! exclaimed Mr Heffernan desperately.



— We can combine the two lives by living as a Catholic should, doing our duty to God first and then the duties of our station in life, said Mr Fulham, leaning comfortably on the last phrase.



— You can be a patriot, Mr Heffernan, said Stephen, without accusing those who do not agree with you of irreligion.



— I never accused...



— Come now, said Mr Fulham genially, we all understand each other.



Stephen had enjoyed this little skirmish: it had been a pastime for him to turn the guns of orthodoxy upon the orthodox ranks and see how they would stand the fire. Mr Heffernan seemed to him a typical Irishman of the provinces; assertive and fearful, sentimental and rancourous, idealist in speech and realist in conduct. Mr Fulham was harder to understand. His championing of the Irish peasant was full of zealous patronage, his ardour for the Church was implicit with his respect for feudal distinctions, and his natural submission to what he regarded as the dispenser of these distinctions. He would enforce his aristocratic notions in a homely way:



— Come now, Mr So and So, you buy cattle on fair-day in the town?



— Yes.



— And you go the racecourse and make a bet or two as you fancy?



— I must admit I do.



— And you pride yourself on knowing a thing or two about coursing?



— I think I do.



— Then how can you say there is no aristocracy of breed in men since you know it exists in animals?



Mr Fulham's pride was the pride of the burgher in the costly burdensome canopy which he has exerted and loves to sustain. He had affection for the feudal machinery and desired nothing better than that it should crush him — a common wish of the human adorer whether he cast himself under Juggernaut or pray God with tears of affection to mortify him or swoon under the hand of his mistress. To the sensitive inferior his charity would have offered intolerable pain of mind and yet the giver would use neither the air nor the language of the self-righteous. His conceptions of human relations might perhaps have passed for a progressive conception in the ages when the earth was thought to be scaphoid and had he lived then he might have been reputed the most enlightened of slave-owners. As Stephen watched the old man gravely handing his snuff-box to Mr Heffernan, and the latter perforce appeased, inserting a large hand therein he thought:

"scaphoid" = boatshaped

— My godfather is the Papal ambassador to Westmeath.




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