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After all the acting and gesturing, he finally recites the words
“as well as [he] can bring them to mind” (116), and “ceased
and looked at [the listeners], enjoying a silence” (117) upon
finishing the recitation. “That is oratory,” MacHugh
emphasizes (118). Taylor’s speech, in summary, refers to
Moses’s repudiation of the Egyptian priest’s command that
Israelites accept the language, religion, and culture of Egypt, a
reference suggesting that the Irish reject the ruler’s attempt at
Anglicizing Ireland. Despite the patriotism manifest in Taylor’s
speech, MacHugh focuses on the oratory rather than the
content, on the orator’s phrasing rather than his objective, and
what follows the recitation is the decision to have drinks at
Mooney’s. As MacHugh says of Dawson’s speech,
“Bombast! . . . Enough of the inflated windbag!” (104). He is
himself an inflated windbag full of bombast, being led away by,
and meanwhile leading people away with, words. This
ravenous, failure-loving, and bombastic professor, ironically,
represents an intellectual in the field of Classics in charge of
the edification of the younger generation.
MacHugh’s unreserved praise of the Hellenistic and
fierce rejection of the Roman world, Mikics suggests, links him
to his ideological opponent Garrett Deasy, the headmaster of
the “Nestor” episode (1990: 542-543). Also an educator,
Deasy forms a striking contrast to MacHugh in terms of his
attitude toward the materialistic and the British ruler. While
the professor detests the country which sees time as money and
stresses material domination (Joyce, 1986: 115), the
headmaster preaches the value of money: “You don’t know yet
what money is. Money is power” (25). Giving Stephen his
wages, Deasy thus has power over the young man
—
he wants
Stephen, with his literary connections, to have the letter on
foot-and-mouth disease published. Unsurprisingly, the
preacher of the value of money has a high regard for the very
country whose people boast “
I paid my way
” (25). Pro-British