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“OMNIUM GATHERUM”
241
Mark Osteen also has it that the newspapermen circulate
borrowed rhetoric and money instead of exchanging news
(1995: 204). Remiss in their duties and failing to meet their
obligations as pressmen, the Dubliners in the office embody the
degenerate and corrupt journalistic intellectuals Joyce distrusts;
far from acting as the conscience of the nation, they are
concerned more about a drink in the pub and the cash in their
pockets than about the soul of Ireland.
IV. Joyce’s Representations of Other
Intellectuals: Lawyers and Educators
Joyce also depicts intellectuals in other fields than the
press in “Aeolus.” It is true that Crawford rules over the
newspaper office, yet J. J. O’Molloy and Professor MacHugh,
representing the law and Classics respectively, dominate the
discussion on oratory. At sight of O’Molloy in the office,
Bloom comments inwardly:
Cleverest fellow at the junior bar he used to be.
Decline, poor chap. That hectic flush spells finis for a
man. Touch and go with him. What’s in the wind, I
wonder. Money worry. . . .
Practice dwindling. A mighthavebeen. Losing
heart. Gambling. Debts of honour. Reaping the
whirlwind. Used to get good retainers from D. and T.
Fitzgerald. . . . Believe he does some literary work for
the Express with Gabriel Conroy. Wellread fellow.
(Joyce, 1986: 103)
Bloom appreciates O’Molloy’s talent at the bar and his
versatility, but notes that
now
he is characterized by
unfulfillment, deterioration, and bankruptcy. Bloom
conjectures correctly about the barrister’s purpose in the
Evening Telegraph
office: he comes to see Crawford for a loan,
but is refused by the editor, who claims to be as hard up as his