Page 752 - ULYSSES

Ulysses

pelican in his piety, who did not scruple, oblivious of the
ties of nature, to attempt illicit intercourse with a female
domestic drawn from the lowest strata of society! Nay, had
the hussy’s scouringbrush not been her tutelary angel, it

had gone with her as hard as with Hagar, the Egyptian! In
the question of the grazing lands his peevish asperity is
notorious and in Mr Cuffe’s hearing brought upon him
from an indignant rancher a scathing retort couched in
terms as straightforward as they were bucolic. It ill
becomes him to preach that gospel. Has he not nearer
home a seedfield that lies fallow for the want of the
ploughshare? A habit reprehensible at puberty is second
nature and an opprobrium in middle life. If he must
dispense his balm of Gilead in nostrums and apothegms of
dubious taste to restore to health a generation of unfledged
profligates let his practice consist better with the doctrines
that now engross him. His marital breast is the repository
of secrets which decorum is reluctant to adduce. The lewd
suggestions of some faded beauty may console him for a
consort neglected and debauched but this new exponent
of morals and healer of ills is at his best an exotic tree
which, when rooted in its native orient, throve and
flourished and was abundant in balm but, transplanted to a
clime more temperate, its roots have lost their quondam

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