The Joyce I Knew

Abstract

On the evening in question I had gone there¹ to meet a party which, however, did not materialise; and I wandered about the hall watching the couples dancing thinking perhaps I might meet someone I knew to dance with. I saw a group of people at the far end of the hall I knew, but I did not want to get in with them, I wanted to dance, life is too short to talk it away. However, towards the end, one of the ladies hailed me over, and introducing her friends who sat at the table, presented me to James Joyce. The meeting was unexpected, and gave me rather a shock. I had read a couple of his early books and had disliked them intensely. As an author you either admire Joyce without reserve: or you hate him: I had done the latter. But I rather liked the man: slightly and gracefully built, with a rather Shakespearian head, he wore strong glasses, which greatly magnified one eye, a small goatee beard covered a thin lipped, curiously shaped mouth. His hands were noticeably fine, and slight fingered. Every movement of his proclaimed a poet — everything except his mouth. His manner was sympathetic rather than friendly — because Joyce’s social manner is not easy. He surrounds himself normally with a kind of mental barbed wire — but his exquisite manners reminiscent of the Dublin of the Grand Days — that remarkable Irish courtliness — he always has. And the more difficult the position is the more perfect his manner.

Extracted from From the Old Waterford House (Waterford: Carthage Press, 1940) pp. 148–50, 153–5. Editor’s title.