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up to the hilt Spain decayed when the inquisition hounded
the jews out and England prospered when Cromwell, an un-
commonly able ruffian who in other respects has much to
answer for, imported them. Why? Because they are imbued
with the proper spirit. They are practical and are proved to
be so. I don’t want to indulge in any because you know the
standard works on the subject and then orthodox as you
are. But in the economic, not touching religion, domain
the priest spells poverty. Spain again, you saw in the war,
compared with goahead America. Turks. It’s in the dogma.
Because if they didn’t believe they’d go straight to heaven
when they die they’d try to live better, at least so I think.
That’s the juggle on which the p.p’s raise the wind on false
pretences. I’m, he resumed with dramatic force, as good an
Irishman as that rude person I told you about at the outset
and I want to see everyone, concluded he, all creeds and
classes pro rata having a comfortable tidysized income, in
no niggard fashion either, something in the neighbourhood
of 300 pounds per annum. That’s the vital issue at stake
and it’s feasible and would be provocative of friendlier in-
tercourse between man and man. At least that’s my idea
for what it’s worth. I call that patriotism. Ubi patria, as we
learned a smattering of in our classical days in Alma Ma-
ter, vita bene. Where you can live well, the sense is, if you
work.
Over his untastable apology for a cup of coffee, listen-
ing to this synopsis of things in general, Stephen stared at
nothing in particular. He could hear, of course, all kinds of
words changing colour like those crabs about Ringsend in