"Stately, Plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:
___Introibo ad altare Dei.
Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called coarsely:
___Come up, Kinch. Come up, you fearful jesuit.
Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding country and the awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat and shaking his head. Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak." (1)
This small piece of prose by Joyce is an example of the qualities that helped to influence the public and critics alike, in considering the author to be one of the best writers to have ever taken up the pen. The words move in such a way that the reader can see, touch, and feel the sights and sounds of Dublin, Ireland inside his or her own mind. Adjectives such as gurgling, shaking, untonsured leave images in the imagination that stay with a reader, holding onto the mind, so that the reader is able to see the characters moving in a place in time, as if they are real persons walking upon this stage that Shakespeare once described as being the wooden pedestal of life. Joyce also can be observed using strong words in this segment of
