Ulysses
As per prospectus of the Industrious Foreign Acclimatised Nationalised
Friendly Stateaided Building Society (incorporated 1874), a maximum of
£ 60 per annum, being 1/6 of an assured income, derived from giltedged
securities, representing at 5 % simple interest on capital of £ 1200
(estimate of price at 20 years’ purchase), of which 1/3 to be paid on
acquisition and the balance in the form of annual rent, viz. £ 800 plus
2 1/2 % interest on the same, repayable quarterly in equal annual
instalments until extinction by amortisation of loan advanced for
purchase within a period of 20 years, amounting to an annual rental of
£ 64, headrent included, the titledeeds to remain in possession of the
lender or lenders with a saving clause envisaging forced sale,
foreclosure and mutual compensation in the event of protracted failure
to pay the terms assigned, otherwise the messuage to become the
absolute property of the tenant occupier upon expiry of the period of
years stipulated.
What rapid but insecure means to opulence might facilitate immediate
purchase?
A private wireless telegraph which would transmit by dot and dash
system the result of a national equine handicap (flat or steeplechase)
of 1 or more miles and furlongs won by an outsider at odds of 50 to 1
at 3 hr 8 m p.m. at Ascot (Greenwich time), the message being received
and available for betting purposes in Dublin at 2.59 p.m. (Dunsink
time). The unexpected discovery of an object of great monetary value
(precious stone, valuable adhesive or impressed postage stamps (7
schilling, mauve, imperforate, Hamburg, 1866: 4 pence, rose, blue
paper, perforate, Great Britain, 1855: 1 franc, stone, official,
rouletted, diagonal surcharge, Luxemburg, 1878), antique dynastical
ring, unique relic) in unusual repositories or by unusual means: from
the air (dropped by an eagle in flight), by fire (amid the carbonised
remains of an incendiated edifice), in the sea (amid flotsam, jetsam,
lagan and derelict), on earth (in the gizzard of a comestible fowl). A
Spanish prisoner’s donation of a distant treasure of valuables or
specie or bullion lodged with a solvent banking corporation 100 years
previously at 5% compound interest of the collective worth of £
5,000,000 stg (five million pounds sterling). A contract with an
inconsiderate contractee for the delivery of 32 consignments of some
given commodity in consideration of cash payment on delivery per
delivery at the initial rate of 1/4d to be increased constantly in the
geometrical progression of 2 (1/4d, 1/2d, 1d, 2d, 4d, 8d, 1s 4d, 2s 8d
to 32 terms). A prepared scheme based on a study of the laws of
probability to break the bank at Monte Carlo. A solution of the secular
problem of the quadrature of the circle, government premium £ 1,000,000
sterling.
Was vast wealth acquirable through industrial channels?
The reclamation of dunams of waste arenary soil, proposed in the
prospectus of Agendath Netaim, Bleibtreustrasse, Berlin, W. 15, by the
cultivation of orange plantations and melonfields and reafforestation.
The utilisation of waste paper, fells of sewer rodents, human excrement
possessing chemical properties, in view of the vast production of the
first, vast number of the second and immense quantity of the third,
every normal human being of average vitality and appetite producing
annually, cancelling byproducts of water, a sum total of 80 lbs. (mixed
animal and vegetable diet), to be multiplied by 4,386,035, the total
population of Ireland according to census returns of 1901.
Were there schemes of wider scope?
A scheme to be formulated and submitted for approval to the harbour
commissioners for the exploitation of white coal (hydraulic power),
obtained by hydroelectric plant at peak of tide at Dublin bar or at
head of water at Poulaphouca or Powerscourt or catchment basins of main
streams for the economic production of 500,000 W. H. P. of electricity.
A scheme to enclose the peninsular delta of the North Bull at
Dollymount and erect on the space of the foreland, used for golf links
and rifle ranges, an asphalted esplanade with casinos, booths, shooting
galleries, hotels, boardinghouses, readingrooms, establishments for
mixed bathing. A scheme for the use of dogvans and goatvans for the
delivery of early morning milk. A scheme for the development of Irish
tourist traffic in and around Dublin by means of petrolpropelled
riverboats, plying in the fluvial fairway between Island bridge and
Ringsend, charabancs, narrow gauge local railways, and pleasure
steamers for coastwise navigation (10/- per person per day, guide
(trilingual) included). A scheme for the repristination of passenger
and goods traffics over Irish waterways, when freed from weedbeds. A
scheme to connect by tramline the Cattle Market (North Circular road
and Prussia street) with the quays (Sheriff street, lower, and East
Wall), parallel with the Link line railway laid (in conjunction with
the Great Southern and Western railway line) between the cattle park,
Liffey junction, and terminus of Midland Great Western Railway 43 to 45
North Wall, in proximity to the terminal stations or Dublin branches of
Great Central Railway, Midland Railway of England, City of Dublin Steam
Packet Company, Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company, Dublin and
Glasgow Steam Packet Company, Glasgow, Dublin and Londonderry Steam
Packet Company (Laird line), British and Irish Steam Packet Company,
Dublin and Morecambe Steamers, London and North Western Railway
Company, Dublin Port and Docks Board Landing Sheds and transit sheds of
Palgrave, Murphy and Company, steamship owners, agents for steamers
from Mediterranean, Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium and Holland and
for Liverpool Underwriters’ Association, the cost of acquired rolling
stock for animal transport and of additional mileage operated by the
Dublin United Tramways Company, limited, to be covered by graziers’
fees.
Positing what protasis would the contraction for such several schemes
become a natural and necessary apodosis?
Given a guarantee equal to the sum sought, the support, by deed of gift
and transfer vouchers during donor’s lifetime or by bequest after
donor’s painless extinction, of eminent financiers (Blum Pasha,
Rothschild, Guggenheim, Hirsch, Montefiore, Morgan, Rockefeller)
possessing fortunes in 6 figures, amassed during a successful life, and
joining capital with opportunity the thing required was done.
What eventuality would render him independent of such wealth?
The independent discovery of a goldseam of inexhaustible ore.
For what reason did he meditate on schemes so difficult of realisation?
It was one of his axioms that similar meditations or the automatic
relation to himself of a narrative concerning himself or tranquil
recollection of the past when practised habitually before retiring for
the night alleviated fatigue and produced as a result sound repose and
renovated vitality.
His justifications?
As a physicist he had learned that of the 70 years of complete human
life at least 2/7, viz. 20 years are passed in sleep. As a philosopher
he knew that at the termination of any allotted life only an
infinitesimal part of any person’s desires has been realised. As a
physiologist he believed in the artificial placation of malignant
agencies chiefly operative during somnolence.
What did he fear?
The committal of homicide or suicide during sleep by an aberration of
the light of reason, the incommensurable categorical intelligence
situated in the cerebral convolutions.
What were habitually his final meditations?
Of some one sole unique advertisement to cause passers to stop in
wonder, a poster novelty, with all extraneous accretions excluded,
reduced to its simplest and most efficient terms not exceeding the span
of casual vision and congruous with the velocity of modern life.
What did the first drawer unlocked contain?
A Vere Foster’s handwriting copybook, property of Milly (Millicent)
Bloom, certain pages of which bore diagram drawings, marked _Papli_,
which showed a large globular head with 5 hairs erect, 2 eyes in
profile, the trunk full front with 3 large buttons, 1 triangular foot:
2 fading photographs of queen Alexandra of England and of Maud
Branscombe, actress and professional beauty: a Yuletide card, bearing
on it a pictorial representation of a parasitic plant, the legend
_Mizpah_, the date Xmas 1892, the name of the senders: from Mr + Mrs M.
Comerford, the versicle: _May this Yuletide bring to thee, Joy and
peace and welcome glee_: a butt of red partly liquefied sealing wax,
obtained from the stores department of Messrs Hely’s, Ltd., 89, 90, and
91 Dame street: a box containing the remainder of a gross of gilt “J”
pennibs, obtained from same department of same firm: an old sandglass
which rolled containing sand which rolled: a sealed prophecy (never
unsealed) written by Leopold Bloom in 1886 concerning the consequences
of the passing into law of William Ewart Gladstone’s Home Rule bill of
1886 (never passed into law): a bazaar ticket, No 2004, of S. Kevin’s
Charity Fair, price 6d, 100 prizes: an infantile epistle, dated, small
em monday, reading: capital pee Papli comma capital aitch How are you
note of interrogation capital eye I am very well full stop new
paragraph signature with flourishes capital em Milly no stop: a cameo
brooch, property of Ellen Bloom (born Higgins), deceased: a cameo
scarfpin, property of Rudolph Bloom (born Virag), deceased: 3
typewritten letters, addressee, Henry Flower, c/o. P. O. Westland Row,
addresser, Martha Clifford, c/o. P. O. Dolphin’s Barn: the
transliterated name and address of the addresser of the 3 letters in
reversed alphabetic boustrophedonic punctated quadrilinear cryptogram
(vowels suppressed) N. IGS./WI. UU. OX/W. OKS. MH/Y. IM: a press
cutting from an English weekly periodical _Modern Society_, subject
corporal chastisement in girls’ schools: a pink ribbon which had
festooned an Easter egg in the year 1899: two partly uncoiled rubber
preservatives with reserve pockets, purchased by post from Box 32, P.
O., Charing Cross, London, W. C.: 1 pack of 1 dozen creamlaid envelopes
and feintruled notepaper, watermarked, now reduced by 3: some assorted
Austrian-Hungarian coins: 2 coupons of the Royal and Privileged
Hungarian Lottery: a lowpower magnifying glass: 2 erotic photocards
showing a) buccal coition between nude senorita (rere presentation,
superior position) and nude torero (fore presentation, inferior
position) b) anal violation by male religious (fully clothed, eyes
abject) of female religious (partly clothed, eyes direct), purchased by
post from Box 32, P. O., Charing Cross, London, W. C.: a press cutting
of recipe for renovation of old tan boots: a 1d adhesive stamp,
lavender, of the reign of Queen Victoria: a chart of the measurements
of Leopold Bloom compiled before, during and after 2 months’
consecutive use of Sandow-Whiteley’s pulley exerciser (men’s 15/-,
athlete’s 20/-) viz. chest 28 in and 29 1/2 in, biceps 9 in and 10 in,
forearm 8 1/2 in and 9 in, thigh 10 in and 12 in, calf 11 in and 12 in:
1 prospectus of The Wonderworker, the world’s greatest remedy for
rectal complaints, direct from Wonderworker, Coventry House, South
Place, London E C, addressed (erroneously) to Mrs L. Bloom with brief
accompanying note commencing (erroneously): Dear Madam.
Quote the textual terms in which the prospectus claimed advantages for
this thaumaturgic remedy.
It heals and soothes while you sleep, in case of trouble in breaking
wind, assists nature in the most formidable way, insuring instant
relief in discharge of gases, keeping parts clean and free natural
action, an initial outlay of 7/6 making a new man of you and life worth
living. Ladies find Wonderworker especially useful, a pleasant surprise