James Joyce: “If He Had Smiled”

Photographer Unknown, (If He Had Smiled)

“If he had smiled why would he have smiled? To reflect that each one who enters imagines himself to be the first to enter whereas he is always the last term of a preceding series even if the first term of a succeeding one, each imagining himself to be first, last, only and alone whereas he is neither first nor last nor only nor alone in a series originating in and repeated to infinity.” 

—James Joyce, Ulysses

His Pale Body

Photographer Unknown, (His Pale Body)

“He foresaw his pale body reclined in it at full, naked, in a womb of warmth, oiled by scented melting soap, softly lavered. He saw his trunk and limbs riprippled over and sustained, buoyed lightly upward, lemonyellow: his navel, bud of flesh: and saw the dark tangled curls of his bush floating, floating hair of the stream around the limp father of thousands, a languid floating flower.” – James Joyce, Ulysses