ul or the dullness of the
thundercloud, charged with intellection and capable of the gloom of
God?

--I meant a different kind of lamp, sir, said Stephen.

--Undoubtedly, said the dean.

--One difficulty, said Stephen, in esthetic discussion is to know
whether words are being used according to the literary tradition or
according to the tradition of the marketplace. I remember a sentence of
Newman's in which he says of the Blessed Virgin that she was detained
in the full company of the saints. The use of the word in the
marketplace is quite different. I HOPE I AM NOT DETAINING YOU.

--Not in the least, said the dean politely.

--No, no, said Stephen, smiling, I mean--

--Yes, yes; I see, said the dean quickly, I quite catch the point:
DETAIN.

He thrust forward his under jaw and uttered a dry short cough.

--To return to the lamp, he said, the feeding of it is also a nice
problem. You must choose the pure oil and you must be careful when you
pour it in not to overflow it, not to pour in more than the funnel can
hold.

--What funnel? asked Stephen.

--The funnel through which you pour the oil into your lamp.

--That? said Stephen. Is that called a funnel? Is it not a tundish?

--What is a tundish?

--That. The... funnel.

--Is that called a tundish in Ireland? asked the dean. I never heard
the word in my life.

--It is called a tundish in Lower Drumcondra, said Stephen, laughing,
where they speak the best English.

--A tundish, said the dean reflectively. That is a most interesting
word. I must look that word up. Upon my word I must.

His courtesy of manner rang a little false and Stephen looked at the
English convert with the same eyes as the elder brother in the parable
may have turned on the prodigal. A humble follower in the wake of
clamorous conversions, a poor Englishman in Ireland, he seemed to have
entered on the stage of jesuit history when that strange play of
intrigue and suffering and envy and struggle and indignity had been all
but given through--a late-comer, a tardy spirit. From what had he set
out? Perhaps he had been born and bred among serious dissenters, seeing
salvation in Jesus only and abhorring the vain pomps of the
establishment. Had he felt the need of an implicit faith amid the
welter of sectarianism and the jargon of its turbulent schisms, six
principle men, peculiar people, seed and snake baptists, supralapsarian
dogmatists? Had he found the true church all of a sudden in