Quotation from: Dubliners

Written by: James Joyce


He ran over the headings of his speech: Irish hospitality, sad
memories, the Three Graces, Paris, the quotation from Browning.
He repeated to himself a phrase he had written in his review: "One
feels that one is listening to a thought- tormented music." Miss
Ivors had praised the review. Was she sincere? Had she really any
life of her own behind all her propagandism? There had never
been any ill-feeling between them until that night. It unnerved him
to think that she would be at the supper-table, looking up at him
while he spoke with her critical quizzing eyes. Perhaps she would
not be sorry to see him fail in his speech. An idea came into his
mind and gave him courage. He would say, alluding to Aunt Kate
and Aunt Julia: "Ladies and Gentlemen, the generation which is
now on the wane among us may have had its faults but for my part
I think it had certain qualities of hospitality, of humour, of
humanity, which the new and very serious and hypereducated
generation that is growing up around us seems to me to lack." Very
good: that was one for Miss Ivors. What did he care that his aunts
were only two ignorant old women?

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