Edward Quinn, James Joyce's Dublin, with Selected Writings from Joyce's Works, (Nice, 1974), Page 98
"It was a subject of regret and absurd as well on the face of it
and no small blame to our vaunted society that the man in the street, when the
system really needed toning up, for a matter of a couple of paltry pounds, was
debarred from seeing more of the world they lived in instead of being always
cooped up since my old stick-in-the-mud took me for a wife. After all, hang it,
they had their eleven and more humdrum months of it and merited a radical
change of venue after the grind of city life in the summertime, for choice,
when Dame Nature is at her spectacular best, constituting nothing short of a new
lease of life. There were equally excellent opportunities for vacationists in
the home island, delightful sylvan spots for rejuvenation, offering a plethora
of attractions as well as a bracing tonic for the system in and around Dublin
and its picturesque environs."