left in a corner, to be leaned on in the road at nightfall or in stress of weather, to lie with a lady's nosegay on a garden seat, to be raised in menace.

The dean returned to the hearth and began to stroke his chin.

----When may we expect to have something from you on the esthetic question? he asked.

----From me! said Stephen in astonishment. I stumble on an idea once a fortnight if I am lucky.

----These questions are very profound, Mr Dedalus, said the dean. It is like looking down from the cliffs of Moher into the depths. Many go down into the depths and never come up. Only the trained diver can go dow into those depths and explore them and come to the surface again.

----If you mean speculation, sir, said Stephen, I also am sure that there is no such thing as free thinking inasmuch as all thinking must be bound by its own laws.

----Ha!

----For my purpose I can work on a present by the light of one or two ideas of Aristotle and Aquinas.

----I see. I quite see your point.

----I need them only for my own use and guidance until I have done something for myself by their light. If the lamp smokes or smells I shall try to trim it. If it does not give light enough I shall sell it and buy another.

----Epictetus also had a lamp, said the dean, which was sold for a fancy price after his death. It was the lamp he wrote his philosophical dissertations by. You know Epictetus?

----An old gentlemen, said Stephen coarsely, who said that the soul is very like a bucketful of water.

----He tells us in his homely way, the dean went on, that he put an iron lamp before a statue of one of the gods and that a thief stole the lamp. What did the philosopher do? He reflected that it was in the character of a