o '
N E
1II
'S 1R1SHe A THO
II
CIS M
591
It was a great mistake, my being born a man, I would have been much
more successful as a sea gull or a fish.
And later on he says of himself: "Stammering
is
the native eloquence
of us fog people."
Constantly-except for the mother-they see the wild humor of
the tragic or grotesque things that they do. Thus Jamie on the night
of the "long day's journey" behaves characteristically; he gets drunk
and goes to Mamie Burns's whorehouse, where he picks "Fat Violet,"
whom Mamie has threatened to fire because she
is
bad for business;
Jamie takes her upstairs and starts reciting "Cynara."
She stood it for a while. Then she got good and sore. Got the idea I
took her upstairs for a joke. Gave me a grand bawling out. Said she
was better than a drunken bum who recited poetry. Then she began
to cry. So I had to say I loved her because she was fat, and she wanted
to believe that, and I stayed with her to prove it, and that cheered
her up, and she kissed me when I left, and said she'd fallen hard for
me, and we both cried a little more in the hallway, and everything was
fine, except Mamie Burns thought I'd gone bughouse.
Jamie continues:
This night has opened my eyes to a great career in store for me, my
boy! I shall give the art of acting back to the performing seals, which
are its most perfect expression. By applying my natural God-given
talents in their proper sphere, I shall attain the pinnacle of success! I'll
be the lover of the fat woman in Barnum and Bailey's circus!
For they are all animated by a tremendous zest for this life that is
so terrible for them, whiskey and all. What they fear
is
madness and
death, and what they fear most of all
is
suicide (both Edmund and
the mother had once made attempts). Drink then is a form of sui–
cide, a day-by-day one, a suicide from which one can awake in the
morning. Like gambling, it
is
suicide without death: and it drowns
out that senseless, mischievous laughter always going on high in the
background.
III
The peoples of " the Celtic Fringe," with the Atlantic at their backs
and a host of formidable aggressors ever bearing down upon them from
the Continent, were naturally inspired to seek imaginative relief from
