Their youthfulness is to me a thing of very poignant, tender beauty. I see again that radiant boy, trailing clouds of glory come from God who was his home. His childhood spent in "a town less than a hundred miles from New York," "now he feels himself actually a New Yorker," "enjoys the proud novelty of working for wages," and "joyfully, therefore, he goes forth every noon to explore the territory of his new possession." The subway was to him "the great nickel adventure"; a ride on the elevated railroad, "aerial journeying"; his alarm clock, "the urban chanticleer." Again, as a commuter, I see him on the 5.24, flying across "leagues" to his cottage in the "primeval forest" of New Jersey. On his "red velvet chair" he sits, "enjoying with his neighbors tobacco smoke, rapid travel, and the news of the world." None ever enjoyed these things more, red velvet chair and all! The connection which I may boast of having with the writing of some of these essays illustrates in an amusing way the pleasantly pugnacious character of Joyce's mind. Joyce held that I was offensively aesthetic in regarding sign-boards about the countryside as ugly things. "Signs and Symbols" was his hilarious and scornful rebuke. "The Gentle Art of Christmas Giving" (a _New York Times_ article reprinted in the two-volume set) had a similar origin. You remember with what amusing gusto it begins: If a dentist stuck a bit of holly in his cap and went through the streets on Christmas morning, his buzzing drill over his shoulder and his forceps in his hand, stopping at the houses of his friends to give their jaws free treatment, meanwhile trolling out lusty Yuletide staves--if he were to do this, I say, it would be said of him, among other things, that he was celebrating Christmas in a highly original manner. Undoubtedly there would be many other adjectives applied to his manner of generosity--adjectives applied, for instance, by the children whom, around their gayly festooned tree, he surprised with his gift of expert treatment. But the adjective most generally used (not perhaps in adulation) would be "original." And the use of this adjective would be utterly wrong. The holly-bedecked dentist would not be acting in the original manner. He would be following the suggestion of his own philanthropic heart. He would be acting in accordance with tradition, a particularly annoying tradition, the evil and absurd superstition that a gift should be representative of the giver rather than of the recipient. That "particularly annoying tradition," that "evil and absurd superstition," I had been guilty of voicing a few days before he wrote this article. He looked at me with withering commiseration.