The (Almost) Annual Hibernian Guest Post from Atticus

His past guest posts are:

2009
2010
2011
2012

This year's guest post needs a spoiler alert, as it is from the conclusion of Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

Look away if you haven't read it.

And now, here's Atticus:

From the conclusion of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Stephen Dedalus is ready to leave and find all that his life has to offer:

APRIL 16. Away! Away!

The spell of arms and voices: the white arms of roads, their promise of close embraces and the black arms of tall ships that stand against the moon, their tale of distant nations. They are held out to say: We are alone—come. And the voices say with them: We are your kinsmen. And the air is thick with their company as they call to me, their kinsman, making ready to go, shaking the wings of their exultant and terrible youth.

APRIL 26. Mother is putting my new secondhand clothes in order. She prays now, she says, that I may learn in my own life and away from home and friends what the heart is and what it feels. Amen. So be it. Welcome, O life, I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race. 

APRIL 27. Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead.

He sends you to James Joyce, I send you to Tomie dePaola for $1.99 on Kindle today. 'Twas ever thus.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!